Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.

Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.

It is a good lesson - though it may often be a hard one - for a man... to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.