An irreligious man is not one who denies the gods of the majority, but one who applies to the gods the opinions of the majority. For what most men say about the gods are not ideas derived from sensation, but false opinions, according to which the greatest evils come to the wicked, and the greatest blessings come to the good from the gods.
—Epicurus, c. 250 BC
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Quotes
The hatred of relatives is the bitterest.
—Tacitus, 117What is life but organized energy?
—Arthur C. Clarke, 1958In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.
—Phillis Wheatley, 1774The first thing that a new migrant sends to his family back home isn’t money; it’s a story.
—Suketu Mehta, 2019Anyone who’s never experienced the pleasure of betrayal doesn’t know what pleasure is.
—Jean Genet, 1986I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BCThe poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?
—Tertullian, c. 215The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCPeople react to fear, not love—they don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true.
—Richard Nixon, 1975I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855