As One Devil to Another: Quoth the Devil

Subjects

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Academia, Atheism, Books, Chance, Competition, Creation, Damnation, Death, Fools, Grief, Homosexuality, Innocence, Internet, Love, Political Correctness, Prejudice, Reality, Reality Television, Recreation, Sexual Revolution, Television, Vanity, Virtual Reality

Academia:

Do not be dismayed that your client is intelligent. There is no inherent incongruity in her being both a potential professor and a fool. (Letter 11) [list]

Atheism:

We must find you a sound atheist, though one that is neither flippant nor intellectually lazy. This may present a problem. (Letter 19) [list]

Books:

… a book is less like a window than a mirror: if a fool peers in, one cannot expect an apostle to peer out. (Letter 3) [list]

Chance:

The formation of matter, the coalescing of cosmic dust, the origin of life, and the evolution of consciousness, of a creature that can conceive of Chance itself, is created by Chance. And then, from a purposeless mindlessness, defying everything that has come before, emerges Mind, embodied in a creature that can think, reason, seek meaning, and not be completely satisfied with a quest for meaning that results in only Chance. Meaninglessness does not produce meaning. If humans are the product of meaninglessness, they would have no concept of meaning, as a worm has no concept of flight. They would never think to ask for or seek meaning at all. Yet they do. Surely, this is enough to provoke even their suspicion. (Letter 19) [list]

Competition:

It is the Principle of the Jungle, the Way of Life of fleas, lice, rats, and roaches. It is strong and ruthless and virile. It is the Way of the Predator. It is the Way of the Dictator. It is the Way of the Tyrant, the Ruler, the King. It is Our Way. It is our guiding light, the Founding Principle of Hell. (Letter 18) [list]

Creation:

The Power of Creation belongs to the Adversary alone. … we cannot make something from nothing. We can only make Something into Nothing … We are confined to the role of spoilers. It can be so undignified. (Letter 13) [list]

Damnation:

There is no music to compare to the final wretched screams of a failed soul. (Letter 1) [list]

Death:

When confronted with death, even the dullest humans are reminded that they will not live forever; that they will live for only seventy or eighty years, but they will be ‘dead’ for all eternity. It could hardly fail to occur to them that perhaps this is something for which to prepare. (Letter 26) [list]

Fools:

… we have some cause for optimism: Our specialty for millennia has been the manufacture of complete fools. (Letter 13) [list]

Grief:

… grief is not the price they pay for love, but its consummation. (Letter 26) [list]

Homosexuality:

We have made homosexuality a Valid Alternate Lifestyle … We have corrupted the homosexual’s legitimate plea for tolerance, turning it into a demand — at first for acceptance, and then for approval. We have thus shifted the response in the heterosexual from charity and sympathy to incredulous disbelief, and sometimes laughter, for even the most cursory knowledge of biology would convince anyone, except those with a real talent for self-deception, that the homosexual is trying to run the machine the wrong way. (Letter 12) [list]

Innocence:

Innocence is a quality we in Hell find particularly unbecoming. (Letter 24) [list]

Internet:

Genuine expertise is silenced in a cacophony of opinion. No single voice, however sane and informed, is of any value at all. This takes the Man-in-the-Street Interview to even greater heights of absurdity. After all, when did the Man in the Street ever possess the thoughtfulness, education, perspective, patience, time for reflection, emotional depth, and reasoning skills to contribute anything? Once again, the Age of Narcissism brings Subjectivity to our aid. Why listen to someone who can instruct you, challenge you, and make you think, when you can speak endlessly, without being corrected by your betters, on any matter whatever, even those you know nothing about, your own cocksureness and ignorance petted and affirmed by a sweet dash of flattery from those at your own level? (Letter 20) [list]

Love:

… a love that is spoken, but not acted upon, is no love at all. (Letter 22) [list]

Political Correctness:

By it we have distorted their perception of reality, instilled the habit of not calling anything by its rightful name, muzzled the dissenting voices of those who will not be deceived … and disabled much of their language for useful dialogue. (Letter 12) [list]

Prejudice:

… the most vociferous claims to superiority in any society are made by the subliterate, the uneducated, and the intellectually deficient. (Letter 12) [list]

Reality:

The world is a kind of dress rehearsal. The real show is on the other side of death. (Letter 5)

Everything on the earthly side of existence is palimpsest, remembrance, whisper, and echo: Music, Love, Laughter, Sex, Knowledge, Art, Revelation, Friendship, Family, Rest, Food and Drink, and Beauty and Pleasure of every kind are only facets of His brilliance. They are separated on Earth into elements that the five human senses can begin to absorb, as white light is separated through a prism into a spectrum of colour that the eye can absorb. To relinquish their earthly existence through death is not to relinquish these pleasures, as we have taught them, but to unite them, and through this unity to enhance their brilliance as colour is reunited into white light. The Light of Grace which He offers them each day is not a light that they can see, but a light that they can see with. It is enough to make one’s tail curl. (Letter 8) [list]

Reality Television:

And just when you thought television could not be made more toxic, we have created Reality Television. It is enough to make one weep with joy. When have two words ever been more inappropriately paired? By this amazingly sinister adaptation (sinister even by our standards), we have transformed behaviour which they would once have engaged in with shame, and viewed with embarrassment, into entertainment. (Letter 20) [list]

Recreation:

… life is not all brimstone and fire and roasting failed souls on a spit. (Letter 21) [list]

Sexual Revolution:

The Sexual Revolution was the Grand Confidence Trick of the twentieth century … Now we have the delicious irony of humans who, having bled marriage of the sacramental and depleted marital fidelity of whatever meaning and value it possessed, express shock at the precipitous rise in the divorce rate. (Letter 9) [list]

Television:

A famous human once said, on seeing the electronic menace, ‘This instrument can teach.’ Everyone Down Here is still laughing over that one. (Letter 10) [list]

Vanity:

… most humans, particularly those involved in artistic or academic pursuits, have their egos heavily invested in their work and do not really want criticism, as they fondly suppose, but praise. (Letter 6) [list]

Virtual Reality:

Perhaps one day soon we will be able to manufacture virtual virtue, and dispense with the real kind entirely. Those are the days to live for! (Letter 20) [list]