Do not believe that others will die, not you.... I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.

Clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart.

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

Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief.

How can people trust the harvest, unless they see it sown?

Love is a boaster at heart, who cannot hide the stolen horse without giving a glimpse of the bridle.

An audience of twenty thousand, sitting on its hands, could not have produced such an echoing silence.