Life is too short to be taken seriously.

The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

Love will fly if held too lightly Love will die if held too tightly . . .

He who stands most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best.

It is art, and art only, that reveals us to ourselves.

The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.