Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

Who has told you that the fruit belies the flower? For the fruit you have not tasted, and the flower you know but by report.

In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone.

Intimacy between stepchildren and stepparents is indeed proverbially difficult.

Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion.

No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure