I do not believe in revealed religion — I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without speculating on another. – Lord Byron, 1778-1824, letter to Rev. Francis Hodgson, 1811

I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses. – William Makepeace Thackeray

There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled desolation. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. – Maya Angelou, PBS, 1988 March 28th