“Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to all your laws; can you name one to which no fact makes an exception?” KnowsGivingFactsBodyLawLyingNamesDealsSurfaceCombinationException Author:Honore de Balzac
“People are frightened of death, and the central lie of all religion is that there’s a cure for this and an exception we’ve made in your own case: an eternal life offered if you make the right propitiations and the right abjections. Well, I’m sorry. I think that it's the height of immorality to lie to people like that. That’s why [religion] survives.” PeopleIfsThinkingWellsMadeLyingCasesEternalSorryCuresHeightExceptionFrightenedI'm SorryEternal LifeImmoralityAbjectionPropitiation Author:Christopher Hitchens
“People are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone are rosy.” PeopleIfsThinkingWorldLyingFoolIllusionRidiculousExceptionYellowLampsTransparentCapsRosyOpaqueMiddlemarch Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Source: Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
“It is not enough that you can form nay, and follow, the most excellent rules for conducting yourself in the world. You must also know when to deviate from them, and where lies the exception.” KnowsWorldEnoughFormLyingExcellentExceptionConductingDeviate Author:Sir Fulke Greville