Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying. Heartbreak House

 I am unaware of anyone ... seriously suggesting ... biological features of the region's peoples that might have contributed.  Guns, Germs And Steel

I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For "many," as they say in the mysteries, "are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics,"—meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers. The Trials Of Socrates

How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility. Book V