death was the price of life.

It is something, I thought, when a king can put a courtesan to the blush.

To hate excellence is to hate the gods.

Half the world's troubles come from men not being trained to resent a fallacy as much as an insult.

Longing performs all things

We Persians have a saying that one should deliberate serious matters first drunk, then sober.

All tragedies deal with fated meetings; how else could there be a play? Fate deals its stroke; sorrow is purged, or turned to rejoicing; there is death, or triumph; there has been a meeting, and a change. No one will ever make a tragedy - and that is as well, for one could not bear it - whose grief is that the principals never met.