“He gathers the things he would have seen and piles them up”

“It was a warm day, and the streets were dusty, owing to the immense gathering which covered every part of them, kicking up the dirt. The atmosphere was suffocating, but Mr. Lincoln could be seen plainly by every man, woman, and child, towering head and shoulders above that crowd; he overtopped every man there. He carried his hat in his hand, fanning his face, from which the perspiration was pouring. He looked as if he would have given his Presidency for a glass of water I would have given my commission for half that.”

“One thing was certain: when someone searched into secret places, he often came up with things he would rather not have found.”

“First he gathered what he needed. Then he needed to keep gathering what he used to need.”

“Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.”

“They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other.”

“But what this deed should be was kept secret from me.
And in this I saw that He willeth not that we dread to know the things that He sheweth: He sheweth them because He would have us know them; by which knowing He would have us love Him and have pleasure and endlessly enjoy in Him. For the great love that He hath to us He sheweth us all that is worshipful and profitable for the time.”

“When they gather together as a single unit, and there is harmony among them--- then He is their king, but not when there is dissention among them.”

“He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest — he had seen beautiful things and horrible things — but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.”

“There's an old Australian stockman, lying, dying… and he gets himself up on one elbow, and he turns to his mates, who are gathered 'round him and he says…”