Opium Quotes

• Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

  Karl Marx

  Religious, Atheist, Heart

  Karl Marx, Joseph O'Malley (1977). “Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy Of Right'”, p.131, CUP Archive

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• Religion is the opium of the masses.

  Karl Marx

  Weed, Atheist, Fear

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• There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.

  Andre Malraux

  Islam, Needs, West

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• Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.

  Jean Cocteau

  Love, Moving, Drug

  Jean Cocteau (1990). “Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure”, Peter Owen Publishers

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• Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!

  Thomas de Quincey

  Keys, Drug, Paradise

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 2 'The Pleasures of Opium'

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• Only the opium eater truly understands the pain of death.

  John Cheever

  Pain

  John Cheever (2010). “Falconer”, p.45, Vintage

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• Old age is like an opium dream. Nothing seems real except the unreal.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Dream, Real, Age

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• Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Long, Laughing, Pleasure

  Thomas De Quincey, Robert Morrison (2013). “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings”, p.39, Oxford University Press

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• Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real.

  Andre Malraux

  Real, Suffering, Teach

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• Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Army, Giving, Joy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.438, Harvard University Press

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• Although the Chinese had used opium as a medicine, there was no widespread addiction before the British arrived.

  Robert Trout

  Medicine, Addiction, Chinese

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• Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

  Edmund Burke

  Country, Wine, Beer

  Edmund Burke (1834). “The works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.256

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• Arab children, Corn ears of the future, You will break our chains, Kill the opium in our heads, Kill the illusions. Arab children, Don't read about our suffocated generation, We are a hopeless case. We are as worthless as a water-melon rind. Dont read about us, Dont ape us, Dont accept us, Dont accept our ideas, We are a nation of crooks and jugglers. Arab children, Spring rain, Corn ears of the future, You are the generation That will overcome defeat.

  Nizar Qabbani

  Children, Spring, Rain

  Nizar Qabbani, “Verse”

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• Confucianism strongly condemned the use of drugs like opium.

  Robert Trout

  Drug, Use, Confucianism

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• The East India Company established a monopoly over the production of opium, shortly after taking over Bengal.

  Robert Trout

  India, East, Monopoly

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• Many Chinese saw opium as a poison introduced by foreign enemies.

  Robert Trout

  Chinese, Enemy, Poison

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• We have used the Bible as if it was a mere special constable's handbook — an opium-dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded — a mere book to keep the poor in order.

  Charles Kingsley

  Bible, Biblical, Special

  "Politics for the People".

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• The britishh seizure of Hong Kong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the britishh Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium.

  Robert Trout

  India, Use, Ugly

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• It appears that the English think the Japanese... are fond of opium, and they want to bring it here also.

  Townsend Harris

  Thinking, Want, Affection

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• Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.

  Tom Robbins

  Inspirational, Life, Atheist

  "Skinny Legs and All". Book by Tom Robbins, 1990.

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• Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.

  Gideon Defoe

  Thinking, People, Pirate

  Gideon Defoe (2012). “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists: Reissued”, p.96, A&C Black

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• Two visions of the world remain locked in dispute. The first believes all men are created equal by a loving God who has blessed us with freedom. The second vision believes that religion is opium for the masses. It believes that eternal principles like truth, liberty, and democracy have no meaning beyond the whim of the state. And [Vladimir] Lenin spoke for them.

  Ronald Reagan

  Believe, Blessed, Men

  Source: www.visionandvalues.org

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• [People] somehow assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change that will push young people into the streets, while in fact it may actually be the new opium for the masses which will keep the same people in their rooms downloading pornography.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Motivation, Inspiration, People

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• He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie.

  Anais Nin

  Addiction, Drug, Doe

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• Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Way, Looks, Whiskey

  W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Painted Veil”, p.145, Random House

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