If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.

The saying attacks the common assumption that the gods actively answer human petitions. It suggests that if divine power were routinely responsive to prayer, human society would self-destruct, because people often ask for outcomes that harm rivals—vengeance, misfortune, defeat. The point is less about denying the existence of gods than about criticizing anthropomorphic religion: projecting human passions onto divinity and treating prayer as a weapon. In an Epicurean frame, it reinforces the idea that the gods (if they exist) are not providential managers of human affairs, and that fear-driven piety and hostile wishing are morally and psychologically corrosive.