In every age of transition men are never so firmly bound to one way as when they are about to abandon it, so that fanaticism and intolerance reach their most intense forms just before tolerance and mutual acceptance come to be the natural order of things.
Bernard Levin (1928-2004) British journalist, critic, broadcaster, satirist
The Pendulum Years: Britain and the Sixties, ch. 4 (1970)
Quotations by:
Levin, Bernard
Countries like ours are full of people who have all the material comforts they desire, yet lead lives of quiet (and at times noisy) desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motorcars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it, however much contentment they place between it and their own consciousness, it aches.