An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

Tolerance is another word for indifference.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.

I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

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