Opium Quotes

Collection of famous quotes and sayings about Opium.

Quotes About Opium

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The opium of the people in the present world is perhaps not so much religion as it is accepted boredom. Such a world is at the mercy, it must be known, of those who provide at least the semblance of an escape from boredom. Human life aspires to the passions, and again encounters its exigencies. ~ Georges Bataille
Opium quotes by Georges Bataille
Witches and sorcerers cultivated plants with the power to "cast spells" -- in our vocabulary, "psychoactive" plants. Their potion recipes called for such things as datura, opium poppies, belladona, hashish, fly-agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria), and the skin of toads (which can contain DMT, a powerful hallucinogen). These ingredients would be combined in a hempseed-oil-based "flying ointment" that the witches would then administer vaginally using a special dildo. This was the "broomstick" by which these women were said to travel. (119) ~ Michael Pollan
Opium quotes by Michael Pollan
Alcohol provokes stupidity; opium provokes wisdom. ~ Sebastian Faulks
Opium quotes by Sebastian Faulks
Opium is not so stupefying to many persons as an afternoon sermon. ~ Jonathan Swift
Opium quotes by Jonathan Swift
Words like passion and ecstasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what's on the other side, and everyone has a story to tell os a woman or a brothel or an opium night or a war. We fear it. We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. ~ Jeanette Winterson
Opium quotes by Jeanette Winterson
But there are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people, and he wanted to get rid of it. But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word "opium" wasn't simply metaphorical. Back then real opium was the only painkiller available, for toothaches or cancer of the throat, or whatever. He himself had used it. As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight, "Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm so glad it works. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Opium quotes by Kurt Vonnegut
The diaries of opium-eaters record how, during the brief period of ecstasy, the drugged person's dreams have a temporal scope of ten, thirty, sometimes sixty years or even surpass all limits of man's ability to experience time
dreams, that is, whose imaginary time span vastly exceeds their actual duration and which are characterized by an incredible diminishment of the experience of time, with images thronging past so swiftly that, as one hashish-smoke puts it, the intoxicated user's brain seems to have something removed, like the mainspring from a broken watch. ~ Thomas Mann
Opium quotes by Thomas Mann
Being doped is a pleasure you pay for. There was always opium there for the people
in the end it tainted their whole faith. If the Church had not always stood so watchfully behind the ruling powers, there would not have been such attacks against everything it stood for
although of course it may have been competing with them for the first place among the rulers, as in the Middle Ages. Whenever it was a question of keeping the serfs, and then the paid slaves down, the dope-dealers came unfailingly to the help of the oppressors. ~ Ernst Bloch
Opium quotes by Ernst Bloch
The artist's greatest creation began
the night he washed his memory of his failures
rubbed opium on his lips
drank the wine that women offered him
and lay down and wept. ~ Roman Payne
Opium quotes by Roman Payne
The Greek word "nostalgia" derives from the root nostros, meaning "return home," and algia, meaning "longing." Doctors in seventeenth-century Europe considered nostalgia an illness, like the flu, mainly suffered by displaced migrant servants, soldiers, and job seekers, and curable through opium, leeches, or, for the affluent, a journey to the Swiss Alps. Throughout time, such feeling has been widely acknowledged. The Portuguese have the term saudade. The Russians have toska. The Czechs have litost. Others too name the feeling: for Romanians, it's dor, for Germans, it's heimweh. The Welsh have hiraeth, the Spanish mal de corazon. Many ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild
Opium quotes by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Religion is the opium of the masses. ~ Karl Marx
Opium quotes by Karl Marx
How about this? Hong Kong had been appropriated by British drug pushers in the 1840s. We wanted Chinese silk, porcelain, and spices. The Chinese didn't want our clothes, tools, or salted herring, and who can blame them? They had no demand. Our solution was to make a demand, by getting large sections of the populace addicted to opium, a drug which the Chinese government had outlawed. When the Chinese understandably objected to this arrangement, we kicked the fuck out of them, set up a puppet government in Peking that hung signs on parks saying NO DOGS OR CHINESE, and occupied this corner of their country as an import base. Fucking godawful behavior, when you think about it. And we accuse them of xenophobia. It would be like the Colombians invading Washington in the early twenty-first century and forcing the White House to legalize heroin. And saying, Don't worry, we'll show ourselves out, and take Florida while we're at it, okay? Thanks very much. ~ David Mitchell
Opium quotes by David Mitchell
All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. ~ Mao Zedong
Opium quotes by Mao Zedong
Lettuce, greens and celery, though much eaten, are worse than cabbage, being equally indigestible without the addition of condiments. Besides, the lettuce contains narcotic properties. It is said of Galen, that he used to obtain from a head of it, eaten on going to bed, all the good effects of a dose of opium. ~ William Alcott
Opium quotes by William Alcott
Chalmers, thanks to Baudelaire, knew all about Taffreuse Juive, opium, absinthe, negresses, Lesbos and the metamorphoses of the vampire ... Needless to say, Chalmers and myself were both virgins, in every possible meaning of the word. ~ Christopher Isherwood
Opium quotes by Christopher Isherwood
Then Chameroy spoke. 'You always put the blame on opium, but as I see it the case of Freneuse is much more complicated. Him, an invalid? No - a character from the tales of Hoffmann! Have you never taken the trouble to look at him carefully? That pallor of decay; the twitching of his bony hands, more Japanese than chrysanthemums; the arabesque profile; that vampiric emaciation - has all of that never given you cause to reflect? In spite of his supple body and his callow face Freneuse is a hundred thousand years old. That man has lived before, in ancient times under the reigns of Heliogabalus, Alexander IV and the last of the Valois. What am I saying? That man is Henri III himself. I have in my library an edition of Ronsard - a rare edition, bound in pigskin with metal trimmings - which contains a portrait of Henri engraved on vellum. One of these nights I will bring the volume here to show you, and you may judge for yourselves. Apart from the ruff, the doublet and the earrings, you would believe that you were looking at the Due de Freneuse. As far as I'm concerned, his presence here inevitably makes me ill - and so long as he is present, there is such an oppression, such a heaviness... ~ Jean Lorrain
Opium quotes by Jean Lorrain
1. The Amazing Race
2. I Thought This Show Was Gonna Be About Aryans
3. Oh.
(Joe O'Neill, from Opium) ~ Dave Eggers
Opium quotes by Dave Eggers
In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Opium quotes by Edgar Allan Poe
In a vivid insight, a flash of black lightning, he saw that all life was parallel: that evolution was not vertical, ascending to a perfection, but horizontal. Time was a great fallacy; existence was without history, was always now, was always this being caught in the same fiendish machine. All those painted screens erected by man to shut out reality - history, religion, duty, social position, all were illusions, mere opium fantasies.
- The French Lieutenant's Woman ~ John Fowles
Opium quotes by John Fowles
Infidelity is an opium of unfaithfulness. ~ Toba Beta
Opium quotes by Toba Beta
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals. ~ Jerzy Peterkiewicz
Opium quotes by Jerzy Peterkiewicz
Religion is no longer the opium of the people but the vitamin pills of the feeble. ~ Regis Debray
Opium quotes by Regis Debray
And finally he had upset the whole household when he arrived an hour and a half late for luncheon and covered with mud from head to foot, and made not the least apology, saying merely: I never allow myself to be influenced in the smallest degree either by atmospheric disturbances or by the arbitrary divisions of what is known as Time. I would willingly reintroduce to society the opium pipe of China or the Malayan kriss, but I am wholly and entirely without instruction in those infinitely more per-nicious (besides being quite bleakly bourgeois) implements, the umbrella and the watch. ~ Marcel Proust
Opium quotes by Marcel Proust
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
Opium quotes by Gideon Defoe
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 quotes by Rachilde
The immediate occasion of this practice was the lowness of wages, which at that time would not allow them to indulge in ale or spirits, and wages rising, it may be thought that this practice would cease; but as I do not readily believe that any man having once tasted the divine luxuries of opium will afterwards descend to the gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted,
That those eat now who never ate before;
And those who always ate, now eat the more. ~ Thomas De Quincey
Opium quotes by Thomas De Quincey
After fulfilling its destructive urge towards everything that is noble and good on earth, it [naive Religion] sketches, in its opium intoxication, a picture of the future situation, which differs drastically from the order of this world, since everything changes and is renewed. ~ Bruno Bauer
Opium quotes by Bruno Bauer
It is quite true that Marx said that religion is the opium of the people. But of course we now know that Marxism is the crack cocaine of the people. ~ Douglas Wilson
Opium quotes by Douglas Wilson
This diary is my kief, hashish and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice. ~ Anais Nin
Opium quotes by Anais Nin
If religious feeling is put in opposition to social change, then it does become an opium, but if it is joined to the struggle for social change then it is a wonderful medicine. ~ Fidel Castro
Opium quotes by Fidel Castro
All that I desire in life are three ...
A wilderness: A beach on the sun-drenched sea,
A puff of opium,
And thee. ~ Roman Payne
Opium quotes by Roman Payne
While you were leaping headlong into an ambush you should have foreseen, she might have been attacked. She might have been killed or worse.'
Rupert came to a halt. 'What could be worse than her being killed, do you think?'
'I thought I had communicated to you Mr. Salt's opinions and wishes in the matter of Mr. Archdale's disappearance,' Beechey said. 'I thought I used easily comprehended terms.'
'You did,' Rupert said. 'I told Mrs. Pembroke about it in much the same way.'
'You told -' After a pause, Beechey went on, his voice strained, 'You cannot have revealed our suspicions about the - ahem - places of dubious repute. This is one of your jokes, I daresay. Ha ha.'
'She said her brother was not in a brothel or opium den and I was on no account to go to such places looking for him,' Rupert said. 'I obeyed, as I was obliged to do. You did tell me I wasn't to upset her, did you not?'
There followed the kind of furious silence with which Rupert was more than familiar. ~ Loretta Chase
Opium quotes by Loretta Chase
All I want in this life are three...
a moonlit beach on the starlit sea,
a breath of opium,
and thee. ~ Roman Payne
Opium quotes by Roman Payne
Cixi's lack of formal education was more than made up for by her intuitive intelligence, which she liked to use from her earliest years. In 1843, when she was seven, the empire had just finished its first war with the West, the Opium War, which had been started by Britain in reaction to Beijing clamping down on the illegal opium trade conducted by British merchants. China was defeated and had to pay a hefty indemnity.

Desperate for funds, Emperor Daoguang (father of Cixi's future husband) held back the traditional presents for his sons' brides – gold necklaces with corals and pearls – and vetoed elaborate banquets for their weddings. New Year and birthday celebrations were scaled down, even cancelled, and minor royal concubines had to subsidise their reduced allowances by selling their embroidery on the market through eunuchs. The emperor himself even went on surprise raids of his concubines' wardrobes, to check whether they were hiding extravagant clothes against his orders. As part of a determined drive to stamp out theft by officials, an investigation was conducted of the state coffer, which revealed that more "than nine million taels of silver had gone missing.

Furious, the emperor ordered all the senior keepers and inspectors of the silver reserve for the previous forty-four years to pay fines to make up the loss – whether or not they were guilty.

Cixi's great-grandfather had served as one of the keepers and his share of the fine amoun ~ Jung Chang
Opium quotes by Jung Chang
Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine. ~ Anais Nin
Opium quotes by Anais Nin
The opium-eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations. He wishes and longs as earnestly as ever to realize what he believes possible, and feels to be exacted by duty; but his intellectual apprehension of what is possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, but even of power to attempt. He lies under the weight of incubus and nightmare; he lies in sight of all that he would fain perform, just as a man forcibly confined to his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who is compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some object of his tenderest love: he curses the spells which chain him down from motion; he would lay down his life if he might but get up and walk; but he is powerless as an infant, and cannot even attempt to rise. I ~ Thomas De Quincey
Opium quotes by Thomas De Quincey
Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium. ~ Thomas Sydenham
Opium quotes by Thomas Sydenham
There are many other escapes from the empirical, external self, which might seem to be, but are not, contemplation. For instance, the experience of being seized and taken out of oneself by collective enthusiasm, in a totalitarian parade: the self-righteous upsurge of party loyalty that blots out conscience and absolves every criminal tendency in the name of Class, Nation, Party, Race or Sect.. Yet it is precisely these ersatz forms of enthusiasm that are "opium" for the people, deadening their awareness of their deepest and most personal needs, alienating them from their true selves, putting conscience and personality to sleep and turning free, reasonable men into passive instruments of the power politician. ~ Thomas Merton
Opium quotes by Thomas Merton
I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who - in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people" - cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human morals and human aims. ~ Albert Einstein
Opium quotes by Albert Einstein
The doctor came and prescribed opium for me. What a marvellous remedy for the pains of my experience! ~ Sadegh Hedayat
Opium quotes by Sadegh Hedayat
Coleridge: poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium. ~ Matthew Arnold
Opium quotes by Matthew Arnold
The classic hustle is still famous, even today, for the cold purity of its execution: bring opium from India, introduce it into China00howdy Fong, this here's opium, opium, this is Fong - ah, so, me eatee! - no-ho-ho, Fong, you smokee, smokee, see? pretty soon Fong's coming back for more and more, so you create an inelastic demand for that shit, get China to make it illegal, then sucker China into a couple-three disastrous wars over the right of your merchants to sell opium, which by now you are describing as sacred. You win, China loses. Fantastic. ~ Thomas Pynchon
Opium quotes by Thomas Pynchon
Nice work in their, Herondale, setting the place on fire," Gabriel observed. "Good thing we were there to clean up after you, or the whole plan would have gone down in flames, along with the shreds of your reputation."
"Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact?" Will demanded with mock horror. "Clearly I have been doing somethin wrong. Or no doing something wrong, as the case may be." He banged on the side of the carriage. "Thomas!" We must away from here at once to the nearest brothel! I seek scandal and low companionship."
Thomas snorted and muttered somethin that sounded like "bosh", which Will ignored.
Gabriel's face darkened. "Is there anything that isn't a joke to you?"
Nothing that comes to mind."
"You know," Gabriel said, "there was a time I thought we could be friends, Will"
"There was a time I thought I was a ferret," Will said, "but it turned out to be the opium haze. Did you know it had that effect? Becausen I didn't. ~ Cassandra Clare
Opium quotes by Cassandra Clare
Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the people. Opium suggests something soporific, numbing, dulling. Too often religion has been an aphrodisiac for horror, a Benzedrine for bestiality. At its best it has lifted spirits and raised spires. At its worst it has turned entire civilizations into cemeteries. ~ Phillip Adams
Opium quotes by Phillip Adams
I think fear keeps people in mundane lives. Fear of freedom, fear of loneliness; it's a powerful opium. ~ John Harris
Opium quotes by John Harris
Optimism is the opium of the people. ~ Milan Kundera
Opium quotes by Milan Kundera
He who loves his neighbor burns his heart, and the heart, like green wood, groans when it burns, and distills itself in tears. There is no point in taking opium; it is better to put salt and vinegar in the soul's wound, for if you fall asleep and no longer feel the pain, then you no longer exist. And the point is to exist. ~ Miguel De Unamuno
Opium quotes by Miguel De Unamuno
Lenin did not write as eloquently about religion as Marx, nor did he write about it often. He wielded Marx's 'opium of the people' from time to time, but his own metaphor was alcoholic. In his 1905 essay, 'Socialism and Religion,' he wrote of 'the distribution of state-clerical gin' in which 'slaves of capital drown their human shape and their claims to any decent life.' His alternative metaphor suggests a shift from thinking of religion as anesthesia to thinking of it - much as Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov did - as a vice. ~ Roland Elliott Brown
Opium quotes by Roland Elliott Brown
I am burning myself up and will always do so. ~ Jean Cocteau
Opium quotes by Jean Cocteau
Freneuse is an oddball, an idler, without any aim in life! If you ask me, he has smoked too much opium in the East, and that explains his somnolence, his morbid lethargies. It's the hazardous legacy of bad habits! He has been comprehensively undone; the heavy influence of poisonous opiates never ceases to oppress him. Besides which, his steel-blue eyes are surely the eyes of a smoker of opium. He carries the drunken burden of hemp in his veins. Opium is like syphilis' - le Mazel released the word carelessly - 'it is a thing which stays for years and years in the blood, because the body is unable to purge itself. It must be absorbed, in the long run, by iodide. ~ Jean Lorrain
Opium quotes by Jean Lorrain
Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged. ~ Chinua Achebe
Opium quotes by Chinua Achebe
Central Intelligence cutting Meo opium fields! China Lobby copping poppies in Burma! How long this Addict government support our oil-burner matter-habit ~ Allen Ginsberg
Opium quotes by Allen Ginsberg
Yong is the outer manifestation of something. Ti is the underlying essence. Technology is a yong associated with a particular ti that is ... Western, and completely alien to us [the Chinese]. For centuries, since the time of the Opium Wars, we have struggled to absorb the yong of technology without importing the Western ti. But it has been impossible. Just as our ancestors could not open our ports to the West without accepting the poison of opium, we could not open our lives to Western technology without taking in the Western ideas, which have been as a plague on our society. The result has been centuries of chaos. ~ Neal Stephenson
Opium quotes by Neal Stephenson
Ian's method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven - who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him - was less subtle and even more effective. "Belhaven," Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight.
The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian's low conversation with him. "I find your presence repugnant," Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?"
Belhaven's mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. "Are - are you trying to force a - duel?"
"Normally one doesn't bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I'm prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut!"
"A duel, with you?" he gasped. "Why, it would be no contest - none at all. Everyone knows what kind of marksman you are. It would be murder."
Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. "It's going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you've been joking about Elizabeth Cameron's visit."
At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. "I have just realized I was joking."
"Good," Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. "Now start ~ Judith McNaught
Opium quotes by Judith McNaught
There are no chains of houses; there are no crowds of men. The colossal diagram of streets and houses is an illusion, the opium dream of a speculative builder. Each of these men is supremely solitary and supremely important to himself. Each of these houses stands in the centre of the world. There is no single house of all those millions which has not seemed to someone at some time the heart of all things and the end of travel. ~ G.K. Chesterton
Opium quotes by G.K. Chesterton
The book can produce an addiction as fierce as heroin or nicotine, forcing us to spend much of our lives, like junkies, in book shops and libraries, those literary counterparts to the opium den. ~ Phillip Adams
Opium quotes by Phillip Adams
I meant that people will take anything that gives them a lift, whether it's alcohol or cocaine or the consciousness-expanding drugs or opiates. In Iran, until recently, they sold opium in shops legally, and they had 3,000,000 addicts in a population of 15,000,000. I don't believe that all those people were escaping from "complexes" or anything of the sort. They were simply exposed to it. ~ William S. Burroughs
Opium quotes by William S. Burroughs
There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman. ~ Andre Malraux
Opium quotes by Andre Malraux
Indulgent Reader, up till now I have concealed it, but I must confess at last. I have one besetting weakness, a weakness that amounts to a vice. I am ashamed of it. Often I have tried to wean myself of it; often cursed the heredity that imposed it on me. Opium? Morphine? Cocaine? Nothing so fashionable. Absinth? Brandy? Gin? Nothing so normal. Alas! let me whisper it in your ear: I am a Chewing Gum Fiend! ~ Robert W. Service
Opium quotes by Robert W. Service
The fear of death is for all of us everywhere, but for the great intelligence of the opium eater it is beautifully narrowed into the crux of drugs. ~ John Cheever
Opium quotes by John Cheever
Sublime tobacco! which from east to west, Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest; Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides His hours, and rivals opium and his brides; Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand: Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe; Like other charmers wooing the caress, More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties Give me a cigar! ~ Lord Byron
Opium quotes by Lord Byron
As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle. ~ William S. Burroughs
Opium quotes by William S. Burroughs
The film drama is the opium of the people ... down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios ... long live life as it is! ~ Dziga Vertov
Opium quotes by Dziga Vertov
The real "opium of the people", distracting men's minds from their essential task, is the communist myth of an earthly paradise. ~ Jean Danielou
Opium quotes by Jean Danielou
- I picked these last night. I want you to have them.
- Th-thanks. What kind of flowers are these? They're pretty.
- The flowers themselves aren't important. It would be better if the blossoms fell off right away.
- What!?
- They're poppies. When the petals fall off, you can cut the seed pods to make opium. Basically, these are the raw materials for heroin. If you sell that in the city, you should bring in an impressive amount of money. ~ Shouji Gatou
Opium quotes by Shouji Gatou
Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide. ~ Tom Robbins
Opium quotes by Tom Robbins
The little hand on time's clock trips away as though measuring seconds; but God knows how much time it is covering when it whisks round heedless of the divisions it passes over! So much is certain, that we have been up here for years. Our brains reel, surely this is an evil dream, though dreamed with nor hashish nor opium; a censor of morals would rebuke us for it. ~ Thomas Mann
Opium quotes by Thomas Mann
In 1865, Scotsman Thomas Sutherland started the Hongkong Shanghai Banking Company (later HSBC). A senior Chinese government official had issued a warrant for future HSBC board member Thomas Dent in 1839, to close his opium warehouses. This helped spark the first Opium War. France's Le Monde Diplomatique said that "HSBC's first wealth came from opium from India, and later Yunan in China." Yunan is in the Golden Triangle area. The first Opium War forced China to cede Shanghai to Western powers, transforming it from a fishing village to China's largest, most modern city with a network of opium smoking dens. Prof. Alfred McCoy would eventually call Hong Kong "Asia's heroin laboratory," and HSBC would become the world's second largest bank. ~ John L. Potash
Opium quotes by John L. Potash
It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people. ~ Simone Weil
Opium quotes by Simone Weil
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium - the bitter lapse into every-day life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Opium quotes by Edgar Allan Poe
[F]or the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their crack cocaine. Its icon is the impeccably Tory, slavishly conformist Beckham. The Reds are no longer the Bolsheviks. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of BP has in taking over from Oprah Winfrey. ~ Terry Eagleton
Opium quotes by Terry Eagleton
I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions. ~ Charles Bukowski
Opium quotes by Charles Bukowski
By the time writing was invented, the Greeks and Egyptians had already learned to extract opium from poppies to facilitate sleep. ~ Kat Duff
Opium quotes by Kat Duff
Opium and heroin had not caused our poverty and hopelessness. Rather, poverty and hopelessness had brought about an unquenchable desire to forget. After ~ Lisa See
Opium quotes by Lisa See
Victoria's head ached under a heavy crown, and her hand throbbed - the ruby coronation ring had been jammed onto the wrong finger; it was later, painfully, removed with ice. Around her stood her older male advisers, in a state of disrepair. Her prime minister was half-stoned with opium and brandy, ostensibly taken to calm his stomach, and he viewed the entire ceremony in a fog. Her archbishop, having failed to rehearse, jumbled his lines. One of her lords tumbled down the steps when he approached to kiss her hand. But Victoria's composure was impeccable. Her voice was cool, silvery, and steady. ~ Julia Baird
Opium quotes by Julia Baird
Love, my dear, is the opium of the masses, and once people get high on it, they will trample you like wild horses. ~ Yanko Tsvetkov
Opium quotes by Yanko Tsvetkov
In order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were not much more difficult to satisfy than those of the brute. Hence luxury in all its forms; delicate food, the use of tobacco and opium, spirituous liquors, fine clothes, and the thousand and one things that he considers necessary to his existence. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Opium quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer
Godrot opium, he thought. But he knew that his life was inexorably tied to opium - and that without it neither The Noble House nor the British Empire could exist. ~ James Clavell
Opium quotes by James Clavell
about 40 million Chinese, a tenth of the country's population, were opium addicts. ~ Yuval Noah Harari
Opium quotes by Yuval Noah Harari
I found Bombay and opium, the drug and the city, the city of opium and the drug Bombay ~ Jeet Thayil
Opium quotes by Jeet Thayil
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged. ~ Czeslaw Milosz
Opium quotes by Czeslaw Milosz
Opium was decadent. Opium was for grandfathers. ~ Cynthia Palmer
Opium quotes by Cynthia Palmer
THE GAMBLER,THE NUN & THE RADIO

Yes, and music is the opium of the people. ~ Ernest Hemingway,
Opium quotes by Ernest Hemingway,
The Garden by Moonlight"

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone. ~ Amy Lowell
Opium quotes by Amy Lowell
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
Opium quotes by Edmund Burke
It wasn't my doing. It is the drink and the laudanum and the opium and that bloody refusal to live. That selfish grief. I thought I could change it with magic, but I can't. People will be who they are, and there is not enough magic in any world to change that. ~ Libba Bray
Opium quotes by Libba Bray
Opiates are compounds derived from opium and include morphine, codeine, and a variety of related alkaloids. The term opioid is broader and includes all compounds (alkaloids or peptides) that have affinity for opioid receptors. ~ Alex S. Evers
Opium quotes by Alex S. Evers
Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium! ~ Thomas De Quincey
Opium quotes by Thomas De Quincey
When I reflect upon what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality; and I look on what has passed as one of those wild dreams which opium occasions, and I by no means wish to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive illusion. ~ Lord Chesterfield
Opium quotes by Lord Chesterfield
Now, the drug is taboo. You do not fool around with it. You give yourself to it and you are caught. I have a horror of it. I have lived in China without ever being curious enough to put a pipe to my lips. It is not a question of virtue. I do not like pharmacopoeia. I like lucidity. It is my guiding star. I will have nothing to do with the vertigo of opium which, with the single exception of De Quincey, is no friend to poetry. It is a filthy poison. ~ Blaise Cendrars
Opium quotes by Blaise Cendrars
Reformed, Poetic Ministry for an Opium Addict ~ Anonymous
Opium quotes by Anonymous
It seemed to her as if her body were altogether too heavy for her; she had the feeling so well known to opium- smokers, which they call "clou'e 'a terre." It is as if the body clung desperately to the earth, by its own weight, and yet in the same way as a tired child nestles to its mother's breast. In this sensation there is a perfect lassitude mingled with a perfect longing. It may be that it is the counterpart of the freedom of the soul of which it is the herald and companion. ~ Aleister Crowley
Opium quotes by Aleister Crowley
Pain is never ennobling, only degrading. And do not be afraid, sir, that there will ever be too little of it in the world to spare mankind its "purification". There will always be human groans enough to fill the sails of that argument. But I am a practical Christian. Unlike you, sir, I relieve suffering, wherever I see it. Your ladies would not object to warm baths, to mitigate labour pains? To opium? It is the same prinicple. ~ Richard Gordon
Opium quotes by Richard Gordon
The greatest drug of all, my dear, was not one of those pills in so many colors that you took over the years, was not the opium, the hash you smoked in houses at the beach, or the speed or smack you shot up in Sutherland's apartment, no, it wasn't any of these. It was the city, darling, it was the city, the city itself. And do you see why I had to leave? As Santayana said, dear, artists are unhappy because they are not interested in happiness; they live for beauty. God, was that steaming, loathsome city beautiful!!! And why finally no human lover was possible, because I was in love with all men, with the city itself. ~ Andrew Holleran
Opium quotes by Andrew Holleran
I like the posture, but not the yoga.
I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be still. I am sleeping. ~ Roman Payne
Opium quotes by Roman Payne
The East India Company established a monopoly over the production of opium, shortly after taking over Bengal. ~ Robert Trout
Opium quotes by Robert Trout
I am a runaway, lost at sea.
I am a broken bird, yearning to fly free.
I am a sinner, unworthy and unholy.
I am a rose, wilting slowly.
I am a raindrop, touching your cheek.
I am a child who plays hide and seek.
I am nothing, and yet I am everything.
I am contradictions and complexities.
I am a face with a hundred entities.
I am love and I am hate.
I am the voice that cannot communicate.
I am a melody, haunting and sad.
I am a soul that has slowly gone mad.
I am death in a living body.
I am a dangerous opium poppy.
I am rage, running through my veins.
I am pain, bound in chains.
I am isolation, imprisoned in my mind.
I am abandoned and left behind.
I am tenderness, soft and kind.
I am trust, naïve and blind.
I am remorse, shattered and frozen.
I am the path I have not chosen.
I am sadness, drowning in an ocean.
I am faith, yearning for devotion.
I am madness, rebellious and wild.
I am sanity, safely filed.
I am wisdom, cursed and blessed.
I am a name that will burn in your chest. I am a journey, destination unknown.
I am a heart turned to stone.
I am forever alone. ~ Mina Alexia
Opium quotes by Mina Alexia
Meanwhile, Kev wondered what to do about Win.
It seemed that love was working through him inexorably, more erotic and sweet and disorienting than raw opium. More pervasive than oxygen from air. He was so damn tired of trying to resist it.
Cam had been right. You could never predict what would happen. All you could do was love her.
Very well.
He would give in to it, to her, without trying to qualify or control anything. He would surrender. He would come out of the shadows for good. He took a long, slow breath and let it out.
I love you, he thought, looking at Win. I love every part of you, every thought and word... the entire complex, fascinating bundle of all the things you are. I want you with ten different kinds of need at once. I love all the seasons of you, the way you are now, the thought of how much more beautiful you'll be in the decades to come. I love you for being the answer to every question my heart could ask.
And it seemed so easy, once he capitulated. It seemed natural and right. ~ Lisa Kleypas
Opium quotes by Lisa Kleypas
At least Lars was curious about the appeal of jazz to black folk; for most observers, such ponderation is akin to contemplating why gorillas like bananas. The attractiveness of jazz to the nonblack is well documented in publicly funded documentaries where experts speak of jazz in the past tense. They look authoritatively into the camera and ingratiate themselves with the Man by saying things like, "White people were hearing something in jazz that says something deeply about their experience. I'm not sure that it would have been this way if we were not a country of immigrants ... so many people felt kind of displaced ... I think that was part of its amazing appeal, was how it spoke to feeling out of sort and out of joint and maladjusted."
What hogwash. Does my fondness for classical music make me well adjusted? Besides, people who are really fucked up don't turn to jazz; they turn to heroin, opium, whiskey, and Vonnegut. ~ Paul Beatty
Opium quotes by Paul Beatty
I question whether any Turk, of all that have entered the Paradise of Opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. But, indeed, I hounour the barbarians too much by supposing them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an Englishman. ~ Thomas De Quincey
Opium quotes by Thomas De Quincey
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