
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
James Harrington in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656)
Misattributed
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
"Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine" as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 417
Context: Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
Introduction to The Ethics of Spinoza (1910)
“Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy.”
La foi est la consolation des misérables et la terreur des heureux.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 184.
“Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends.”
Part 1, Chapter 11 (page 35)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Context: Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.
Paris Review 154, Spring 2000 http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/732/the-art-of-poetry-no-82-derek-mahon
As quoted after his arrest for treason; see Treason: the story of disloyalty and betrayal in American history http://books.google.com/books?id=lXZKAAAAMAAJ&q=%E2%80%9CIf+a+man+isn%27t+willing+to+take+some+risk+for+his+opinions,+either+his+opinions+are+no+good+or+he%27s+no+good%E2%80%9D&dq=%E2%80%9CIf+a+man+isn%27t+willing+to+take+some+risk+for+his+opinions,+either+his+opinions+are+no+good+or+he%27s+no+good%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RgacUteRAZDYoATC1IDYCg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAjgU by Nathaniel Weyl (1950), p. 400