“Men have been growing more stupid for several thousand years; I myself shall waste no tears at his demise"'- old British man in Earth Abides”

“Men go and come, but the earth abides”

“Men go and come, but earth abides.”

“In this also we are men, that we think of the dead. Once it was not so, and when one of us died, he lay where he lay by the cave-mouth and we ran in and out there, not standing quite upright as we ran. Now we stand upright, and now also we think of the dead.So, when the comrade lies there, we do not let him lie where he died. And we do not take him by the legs carelessly, and drag him into the forest for the foxes and woodrats to gnaw on. We do not cast him into the river carelessly for the stream to float him away.No, but rather we lay him where the ground is hollowed out a little and there cover him with leaves and branches. So he shall return to the earth, whence all things came.Or else we lay him to rest among the tree-branches, and give him to the air. Then, if the black birds come streaming from far to pluck at him, that too is right, for they are the creatures of the air.Or else we give him to the bright and hot cleanliness of fire.Then we go about our life as before, and soon we forget, like the beasts. But this at least we have done, and when we shall no longer do it, then we shall no longer be men.”

“It is a strange thing," he thought, "to be an old god. They worship you, and yet they mistreat you. If you do not want to do what they wish, they make you. It is not fair.”

“As once, when the armies of the empire were shattered and the strong barbarians poured in upon the soft provincials, so now the fierce weeds pressed in to destroy the pampered nursling's of man.”

“In that world, those with seeing eyes could only blunder about, but the blind man would be at home, and now instead of being the one who was guided by others, he might be one the one to whom the others clung for guidance.”