In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men.

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.

I thought, There goes my lord, whom I was born to follow. I have found a King. And, I said to myself, looking after him as he walked away, I will have him, if I die for it.

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

It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that.

One might have supposed that the true act of love was to lie together and talk.

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