a short history of decay

“When we reach the limits of monologue, the confines of solitude, we invent—for lack of a better interlocutor—God, supreme pretext of dialogue. So long as you name Him, your madness is well disguised, and… all is permitted. The true believer is scarcely to be distinguished from a madman, but his madness is legal, acknowledged; he would end up in an asylum if his aberrations were pure of all faith. But God covers them, legitimizes them. The pride of a conqueror pales beside the ostentation of a believer who addresses himself to a Creator. How can one dare so much? And how could modesty be a virtue of temples, when a decrepit old woman whom imagines Infinity within reach raises herself by prayer to a level of audacity to which no tyrant has ever laid claim?”