Will the earth still keep her place among the planets; will she still journey with unmarked regularity round the sun; … will beasts pasture, birds fly, and fishes swim, when man, the lord, possessor, perceiver, and recorder of all these things, has passed…
Book 1826
The Last Man quotes
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About the book
In the late twenty-first century, Lionel Verney, a former shepherd boy raised among England's aristocracy, tells the story of his friends, their loves and their political ambitions. Then a plague spreads across the world, and humanity has to face the possibility of its own end. Often called one of the first apocalyptic novels, it mixes romance, politics and a meditation on human extinction.
6 quotes
What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the never-failing pilot of our life’s bark, and…
I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of its surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety.
Farewell to the giant powers of man,—to knowledge that could pilot the deep-drawing bark through the opposing waters of shoreless ocean,—to science that directed the silken balloon through the pathless air,—to the power that could put a barrier to mighty…
Once it was so; now is man lord of the creation? Look at him—ha! I see plague! She has invested his form, is incarnate in his flesh, has entwined herself with his being, and blinds his heaven-seeking eyes.
The choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a paradise. For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of agony.