What is peace? Balance three iron skewers tip to tip, one upon the other; at the summit, emplace and egg, so that it too poises static in mid-air, and there you have the condition of peace in this world of men.

A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.

How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

While we are alive we should sit among colored lights and taste good wines, and discuss our adventures in far places; when we are dead, the opportunity is past.

In the end, death came uniformly to all, and all extracted as much satisfaction from their dying as this essentially graceless process could afford.

If there were no such creatures as minstrel-maidens, it would be necessary to invent them.

A man is like a rope: both break at a definite strain....The solution is not splicing the rope; it's lessening the tension.