I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.

The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out.

One does not really feel much grief at other people's sorrows; one tries, and puts on a melancholy face, thinking oneself brutal for not caring more; but one cannot and it is better, for if one grieved too deeply at other people's tears, life would be unendurable; and every man has sufficient sorrows of his own without taking to heart his neighbour's.

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.

Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.