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Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual?

— Pliny the Elder

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Religion

More quotes by Pliny the Elder

Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.

It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.

When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.

Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible until they have actually been effected?

It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (1849)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pliny the Elder (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.