Arcana > Arcana's Quotes

“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“The truth springs from arguments amongst friends.”
― David Hume

“When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.”
― David Hume

“How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world.”
― David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

“They will not use my tears for their entertainment.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“You were capable of imagining a different future. And maybe it won’t be realized today, maybe not in our lifetime. Maybe it will take generations. We’re all part of a continuum. Does that make it pointless?”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“I know that every year for my birthday, I will get a new pair of tributes, one girl and one boy, to mentor to their deaths. Another sunrise on the reaping.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“I would welcome death, if it wasn’t for my promise to Lenore Dove that I would somehow keep the sun from rising on the reaping.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“A golden cage is still a cage.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“We are sorry, we are sorry.

Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Witches are not so delicate.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“But of course I could not die. I would live on, through each scalding moment to the next. This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I had no right to claim him, I know it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Fear of failure was the worst thing for any spell.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Most men do not know me for what I am.”
“Most men in my experience are fools,” he said.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“However gold he shines, do not forget his fire.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“We bear it as best we can,”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

“No man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping.”
― David Hume, Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul

“Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination. But he must at least have led his mamalukes, or prætorian bands, like men, by their opinion.”
― David Hume

“All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance
and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not
to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is
supported by no appearance of probability.”
― David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

“It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.”
― David Hume

“The bigotry of theologians [is] a malady which seems almost incurable.”
― David Hume

“Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.”
― David Hume

“Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature must produce a man.”
― David Hume, Selected Essays

“The literal meaning of life is whatever you're doing that prevents you from killing yourself.”
― Albert Camus