". . . the mad often see well in their dreams, though these are not sent by a god . . . The mind in its secret places knows all things . . . although it seems to know little or nothing, and when the breath of vision or the fury of a soul distraught blows away the veils or burns through the gates of distance, then for a while it sees and learns, since, whatever fools may think, often madness is true wisdom."

"Bethink you, have there not been days, aye and months, in your own life when you would have rejoiced to sleep in mindlessness? And should we not, perchance, be happier, all of us, if like the beasts we could not remember, foreknow and understand? Oh! men talk of Heaven, but believe me, the real Heaven is one of dreamless sleep, since life and wakefulness, however high their scale and on whatever star, mean struggle, which being so oft mistaken, must breed sorrow—or remorse that spoils all."

"Fire may be lovely and attractive, also comforting at a proper distance, but he who sits on the top of it is cremated, as many a moth has found."

". . . the extreme of unmorality is as fascinating to study as the extreme virtue and often more so."

"Superstition is still king of most of the world, though often it calls itself Religion."

"The worst of scandals becomes romantic and even respectable in two thousand years; witness that of Cleopatra with Cæsar, Mark Antony and other gentlemen. The most virtuous read of Cleopatra with sympathy, even in boarding-schools, and it is felt that were she by some miracle to be blotted out of the book of history, the loss would be enormous. The same applied to Helen, Phryne, and other bad lots. In fact now that one comes to think of it, most of the attractive personages in history, male or female, especially the latter, were bad lots. When we find someone to whose name is added “the good” we skip."

". . . all are still savage at heart, even you and I. For what is termed culture is but coat upon coat of paint laid on to hide our native colour, and often there is poison in the paint."

"The moths are few that fear the flame, but those are the moths which live."

"Human nature does not change, Allan, and wine and women are ancient snares."

". . . all joy grows from the root of pain."

"Oh! it is a strange world, full of jest to those who can see the strings that work it."

"I wonder whether many people understand, as I do, how entirely distinct and how variable are these moods which sway us, or at any rate some of us, at sundry periods of our lives. As I think I have already suggested, at one time we are all spiritual; at another all physical; at one time we are sure that our lives here are as a dream and a shadow and that the real existence lies elsewhere; at another that these brief days of ours are the only business with which we have to do and that of it we must make the best. At one time we think our loves much more immortal than the stars; at another that they are mere shadows cast by the baleful sun of desire upon the shallow and fleeting water we call Life which seems to flow out of nowhere into nowhere. At one time we are full of faith, at another all such hopes are blotted out by a black wall of Nothingness, and so on ad infinitum. Only very stupid people, or humbugs, are or pretend to be, always consistent and unchanging."

". . . what a man believes is true for him and will certainly befall. If it were otherwise, what is the use of faith which in a thousand forms supports our race and holds it from the horrors of the Pit? Only those who believe nothing inherit what they believe—nothing"

"In this country, England, where I write, there are bridges everywhere and no one seems to appreciate them. If they think of them at all it is to grumble about the cost of their upkeep. I wish they could have experienced what a lack of them means in a wild country during times of excessive rain, and the same remark applied to roads. You should think more of your blessings, my friends, as the old woman said to her complaining daughter who had twins two years running, adding that they might have been triplets."

"It seems that in this world we never can be content . . . we only think that we should be if things were otherwise than they are."

"When one can think of nothing, it is best to follow the counsel of those who can think of something; also to hunt rather than to be hunted."

". . . the time of kings is not their own."

"But what of names, which often enough mean nothing at all?"

". . . your praying men . . . are cast in one mould and measured with one rule, and say what they are taught to say, not thinking for themselves . . . Some of them think . . . and then the others fall on them with big sticks. The real priest is he to whom the Spirit comes, not he who feeds upon its wrappings, and speaks through a mask carved by his father’s fathers."

". . . when lost in a forest every path that may lead to safety should be explored"

". . . is there anything so mighty as water in the world, I wonder"

". . . too great holiness often thwarts itself and ends in trouble for the unholy flesh."

". . . do not lie except when you are obliged, for jugglers who play with too many knives are apt to cut their fingers."

"While you are a man, live the life of a man, and when you become a spirit, live the life of a spirit. But do not seek to mix the two together like oil and wine, and thus spoil both."

"It is well to be wise sometimes, for others’ sake, but not for our own, oh! not for our own."

"The seconds seemed minutes, the minutes seemed hours, and the hours seemed years. . . Where now were the gods I had worshipped and—was there any god? Or was man but a self-deceiver who created gods instead of the gods creating him, because he did not love to think of an eternal blackness in which he would soon be swallowed up and lost? Well, at least that would mean sleep, and sleep is better than torment of mind or body."

"The tool carves the statue and the hand holds the tool but the spirit guides the band."

". . . feasts are sometimes followed by want and rejoicings by sorrow and victories by defeat, and splendid sins by repentance and slow climbing back to good again."

". . . why do you seek to peer into the future, which from day to day will unroll itself as does a scroll? Be content with the present, man, and take what Fate gives you of good or ill, not seeking to learn what offerings he hides beneath his robe in the days and the years and the centuries to come."

". . . is [it] better to be alive or dead[?] The religious plump for the latter, though I have never observed that the religious are more eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals."

"The truth is that we fear to die because all the religions are full of uncomfortable hints as to what may happen to us afterwards as a reward for our deviations from their laws and we half believe in something . . . For very few inhabitants of this earth can attain either to complete belief or to its absolute opposite. They can seldom lay their hands upon their hearts, and say that they know that they will live for ever, or sleep for ever; there remains in the case of most honest men an element of doubt in either hypothesis."

"The shaft of my vengeance fell upon my own head."

"Never stretch out your hand to Death till he stretches out his to you"

"Love counts not its labour nor can it weigh its tenderness in the scale of purchase. That which it has it gives, and craves for more to give and give, till the soul's infinity be drained."

". . . who ever sees Wisdom until she is flying away?"

". . . gifts have a way of coming to those who do not desire them"

"Those who go secretly, go evilly; and foul birds love to fly at night."

"How true is the saying that the very highest in rank are always the most simple and kindly. It is in your half-and-half sort of people that you find pompousness and vulgarity."

"Passion is like the lightning, it is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds and kills!"

"[T]he law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money."

"Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo."

"The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late—it does not matter when, in the end it crushes us all."

"[I]n all essentials the savage and the child of civilization are identical."

"For what man is there who does not prize that gift most rare and beautiful, that one perfect thing which no gold can buy – a woman's unfeigned love?"

"Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt."

"Time and time again have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been and passed away and been forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man."

"[T]he food that memory gives to eat is bitter to the taste, and it is only with the teeth of hope that we can bear to bite it."

"[M]emory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand—evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil I shall do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes."

"Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and this many-coloured pigment of imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them doth agree with another!"

"Truly time should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours."