Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.

An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences.

A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,’ said he. ‘Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.

I am very poor - for a know nothing, understand nothing. It is not a calamitous condition until it is realized.

Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.

Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it.’ – Book 3, Chapter 16

Truth is so often disconcerting.