Such evil deeds could religion prompt.

... we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.

[N]ature repairs one thing from another and allows nothing to be born without the aid of another's death.

Poor humanity, to saddle the gods with such a responsibility and throw in a vindictive temper. What griefs they hatch for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our prosperity! This is not piety, this oft-repeated show of bowing a veiled head before a graven image; this bustling to every altar; this kow-towing and prostration on the ground with palms outspread before the shrines of the gods; this deluging of vow on vow. True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind.

Epicurus ... whose genius surpassed all humankind, extinguished the light of others, as the stars are dimmed by the rising sun.

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others

It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind.