#opium

Religion is the opium of the people. He believed that, that dyspeptic little joint-keeper. Yes, and music is the opium of the people. Old mount-to-the-head hadn't thought of that. And now economics is the opium of the people; along with patriotism the opium of the people in Italy and Germany. What about sexual intercourse; was that an opium of the people? Of some of the people. Of some of the best of the people. But drink was a sovereign opium of the people, oh, an excellent opium. Although some prefer the radio, another opium of the people, a cheap one he had just been using. Along with these went gambling, an opium of the people if there ever was one, one of the oldest. Ambition was another, an opium of the people along with a belief in any new form of government. What you wanted was the minimum of government, always less government. Liberty, what we believed in, now the name of a MacFadden publication. We believed in that although they had not found a new name for it yet. But what was the real one? What was the real, the actual, opium of the people? He knew it very well. It was gone just a little way around the corner in that well-lighted part of his mind that was there after two or more drinks in the evening; that he knew was there (it was not really there of course). What was it? He knew very well. What was it? Of course; bread was the opium of the people. Would he remember that and would it make sense in the daylight? Bread is the opium of the people. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#vice #music

In general I strive for greatness and rational achievement, but I admit to you I’ve a terrible fondness for women, a tendency towards drunkenness, and a weakness for the fumes of the poppy—opium and other miserable beauties. ↗

— Roman Payne

#drunkeness #greatness #heroin #opium #poppies

Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding. Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life. ↗

— William S. Burroughs

#junk #opium #pain #plant #seed

My love", she whispered, so low she sounded to Jacques as if she were speaking from the bottom of an abyss, "now we shall belong to each other in a strange country that you do not know. It is the country of madmen but not the country of brutes. I am taking away your vulgar senses and giving you others more refined. ↗

— Rachilde

#opium #love

If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe. ↗

— Kerry Thornley

#fringe #lunatic #masses #opium #organized

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

#death #does #even #everything #express

The British seizure of Hongkong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the British Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium. ↗

— Robert Trout

#british #british empire #china #crimes #destruction

If you make a treaty first with the United States and settle the matter of the opium trade, England cannot change this, though she should desire to do so. ↗

— Townsend Harris

#change #desire #england #first #make

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

— Townsend Harris

#appears #bring #english #fond #here

The expense of a war could be paid in time; but the expense of opium, when once the habit is formed, will only increase with time. ↗

— Townsend Harris

#expense #formed #habit #increase #once