To learn to read is to light a fire.

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.

A strange thing has happened, do you know? I am in darkness. There is a person who, departing, took away the sun.

A woman's best qualities are harmful if undiluted with prudence.

Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.

A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant-hill of stars.

He would give all of his clothes to his servant, admonishing him NOT to return them until he had completed his day's work.