It is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the argument, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we become; indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from moral petrification, if not from moral corruption.

Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever.

Passion is like the lightning, it is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds!

As for the girl, since she is well favoured, she shall brew the king's beer, and be numbered amongst the king's wives-unless, indeed, he is pleased to give her to me.

There is no such things as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature.

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.