Think then what it is to live on here eternally and yet be human; toage in soul and see our beloved die and pass to lands whither we maynot hope to follow; to wait while drop by drop the curse of the longcenturies falls upon our imperishable being, like water slow drippingon a diamond that it cannot wear, till they be born anew forgetful ofus, and again sink from our helpless arms into the void unknowable.
H. Rider HaggardHow can a world be good in which Money is the moving power, and Self-interest the guiding star?
H. Rider HaggardThe food that memory gives to eat is bitter to the taste, and it is only with the teeth of hope that we can bear to bite it.
H. Rider HaggardIt 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.
H. Rider HaggardIt is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its hinges.
H. Rider HaggardMan's cleverness is almost indefinite, and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like an iron ring. You can go round and round it, you can polish it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby you will make it bulge out the other, but you will NEVER, while the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference.
H. Rider Haggard