for what is the gift of the poet and the artist except to see the sights which others cannot see and to hear the sounds that others cannot hear?

The fire of true enthusiasm is like the fires of Baku, which no water can ever quench, and which burn steadily on from night to day, and year to year, because their well-spring is eternal.

One must pray first, but afterwards one must help oneself. God does not care for cowards.

[On Christianity:] Its lip-service and its empty rites have made it the easiest of all tasks for the usurer to cloak his cruelties, the miser to hide his avarice, the lawyer to condone his lies, the sinner of all social sins to purchase the social immunity from them by outward deference to churches.

Histories in blazonry and poems in stone.

Could we see when and where we are to meet again, we would be more tender when we bid our friends goodbye.

Death! It is rest to the aged, it is oblivion to the atheist, it is immortality to the poet!