Chapter 7 (p. 111)

Of course there were doubts about it, there always had been; when you found out about all the other holy books there had ever been throughout the histories of other peoples throughout the galaxy, you realised how common they were, and how fallible, how restricted they were by the usual tribal prejudices and traditions of the people who – it took real blind faith not to accept – had made them up.

— Iain Banks

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Of course there were doubts about it, there always had been; when you found out about all the other holy books there had ever been throughout the histories of other peoples throughout the galaxy, you realised how common they were, and how fallible, how restricted they were by the usual tribal prejudices and traditions of the people who – it took real blind faith not to accept – had made them up." in the context of "Chapter 7 (p. 111)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Iain Banks" (Quotes, Culture series, The Hydrogen Sonata (2013): All page numbers are from the September 2013 first trade paperback edition published by Orbit , first printing All spelling, italics, ellipses, and punctuation as in the book. All bold face as in the book, and represents comments by or conversations among AIs. ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Iain Banks

About Iain Banks

Iain Menzies Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013), officially Iain Banks, was a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he wrote science fiction; as Iain Banks he wrote literary fiction.