“Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no [Virginias]. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.”
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus (1897)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Francis Pharcellus Church 7
American publisher and editor 1839–1906Related quotes
His argument for the introduction of a colony-wide library system in 1955.
The Fountainhead (1943).
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Context: That particular sense of sacred rapture men say they experience in contemplating nature- I've never received it from nature, only from. Buildings, Skyscrapers. I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pest-hole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.
“What would happen to the world if we were human?”
Ibid., p. 259
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Que seria do mundo se fôssemos humanos?