Sarah

“If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [of gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind" (Chapter 65,p. 68)”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Pleasure, scarcely in one instance, is ever able to reach ecstasy and rapture; and in no one instance can it continue for any time at its highest pitch and altitude. The spirits evaporate, the nerves relax, the fabric is disordered, and the enjoyment quickly degenerates into fatigue and uneasiness. But pain often, good God, how often! rises to torture and agony; and the longer it continues, it becomes still more genuine agony and torture. Patience is exhausted, courage languishes, melancholy seizes us, and nothing terminates our misery but the removal of its cause, or another event, which is the sole cure of all evil, but which, from our natural folly, we regard with still greater horror and consternation.”
― David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

“Will any man despise me? Let him see to it. But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that deserves to be despised.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The answer is there is no answer”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke