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Quote#World

Religion finally severed the unity which all willed but none could…

Quote byOlaf Stapledon · 1886–1950

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter VII: The Rise of the Second Men; Section 3, “The Zenith of the Second Men” (p. 110).

English (original)

Religion finally severed the unity which all willed but none could trust. An heroic nation of monotheists sought to impose its faith on a vaguely pantheist world. For the first and last time the Second Men stumbled into a world-wide civil war; and just because the war was religious it developed a brutality hitherto unknown.

— Olaf Stapledon

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