“You're dishonoured, somehow. You've sinned. Sinned against the aspidistra.""You talk a great deal about aspidistras," said Ravelston."They're a dashed important subject," said Gordon.”

“What he realised, and more clearly as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion-the only felt religion-that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the profoundly significant phrase, to make good. The decalogue has been reduced to two commandments. One for the employers-the elect, the money priesthood as it were- 'Thou shalt make money'; the other for the employed- the slaves and underlings'- 'Thou shalt not lose thy job.' It was about this time that he came across The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and read about the starving carpenter who pawns everything but sticks to his aspidistra. The aspidistra became a sort of symbol for Gordon after that. The aspidistra, the flower of England! It ought to be on our coat of arms instead of the lion and the unicorn. There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in the windows.”

“W. S. Plumer said, “We never see sin aright until we see it as against God...All sin is against God in this sense: that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught...Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, ‘I have sinned’; but the returning prodigal said, ‘I have sinned against heaven and before thee’; and David said, ‘Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.”

“She reflected she must be completely besotted with Peter, if his laughter could hallow an aspidistra.”

“Talking about pollution, nobody's holy.They who pollute, sinned against nature.”

“Weigh the reward of the mitzva against the pleasure of the sin, and also weigh the pleasure of the sin against the punishment it will inevitably bring. Are we getting a good deal by opting for sin? Clearly, we are not.”