“This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again…. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.”

Variant: Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or to forget? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives?
Source: Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Source: Even a stone can be a teacher (1985), p. 85

XIV : pity this busy monster, manunkind
1 x 1 (1944)
Variant: listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go

New York Times (July 2, 2004)

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

XIV. In what sense, though the Gods never change, they are said to be made angry and appeased.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: If any one thinks the doctrine of the unchangeableness of the Gods is reasonable and true, and then wonders how it is that they rejoice in the good and reject the bad, are angry with sinners and become propitious when appeased, the answer is as follows: God does not rejoice — for that which rejoices also grieves; nor is he angered — for to be angered is a passion; nor is he appeased by gifts — if he were, he would be conquered by pleasure.
It is impious to suppose that the divine is affected for good or ill by human things. The Gods are always good and always do good and never harm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth simply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the Gods by our likeness to live according to virtue we cling to the Gods, and when we become evil we make the Gods our enemies — not because they are angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the Gods from shining upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of punishment. And if by prayers and sacrifices we find forgiveness of sins, we do not appease or change the Gods, but by what we do and by our turning toward the divine we heal our own badness and so enjoy again the goodness of the Gods. To say that God turns away from the evil is like saying that the sun hides himself from the blind.

On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 18

cited by Craig A. Masback, "A Sports White Paper for Clinton," http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/24/sports/backtalk-a-sports-white-paper-for-clinton.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm New York Times. January 24, 1993, p. S-11.