Fantasies We Live By - Terry Pratchett

"You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

Really?  As if it was some kind of pink pill?  No. Humans
need fantasy to be human.  To be the place where falling
angel meets the rising ape.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little - ?"

Yes. As practice.  You have to start out learning to believe
the little lies.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty.  That sort of thing.

"They're not all the same at all!"

You think so?  Then take the Universe and grind it down to
the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and
then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.
And yet (Death waved a hand).  And yet you act as if there
is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some...
some rightness in the Universe by which it may be judged.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point -"

My point exactly...

Terry Pratchett
From Hogfather

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering