The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
I have followed after the truth, across this windy planet upon which every person is nourished by one or another lie.
People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.
I am willing to taste any drink once.
Trapped dreams must die.
Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart.
And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower, But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes from Schopenhauer. Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth, And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods have need of mirth.
Oh, do the Overlords of Life and Death always provide some obstacle to prevent what all of us have known in youth was possible from ever coming true?
There are many of our so-called captains on industry who, if the truth were told, and a shorter and uglier word were not unpermissible, are little better than malefactors of great wealth.
I was born, I think, with the desire to make beautiful books – brave books that would preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken joy and magnanimity.
For although this was a very heroic war, with a parade of every sort of high moral principle, and with the most sonorous language employed upon both sides, it somehow failed to bring about either the reformation or the ruin of humankind: and after the conclusion of the murdering and general breakage, the world went on pretty much as it has done after all other wars, with a vague notion that a deal of time and effort had been unprofitably invested, and a conviction that it would be inglorious to say so.
There is, moreover, a sign by which you may distinguish Thragnar. For if you deny what he says, he will promptly concede you are in the right. This was the curse put upon him by Miramon Lluagor, for a detection and a hindrance.” “By that unhuman trait,” says Jurgen, “ Thragnar ought to be very easy to distinguish.
The religion of Hell is patriotism, and the government is an enlightened democracy.
When you consider that presidents and chief-justices and archbishops and kings and statesmen are human beings like you and me and the laundryman, the thought becomes too horrible for humanity to face.
I am looking for my wife, whom I suspect to have been carried off by a devil, poor fellow!
Well, love is very pleasant to observe as he advances, overthrowing all ancient memories with laughter. And yet for each gay lover who concedes the lordship of love, and wears intrepidly love’s liveries, the end of all is death.
Well, when in Rome,” said Jurgen, “one must be romantic.
Hah, all we poets write a deal about love: but none of us may grasp the word’s full meaning until he reflects that this is a passion mighty enough to induce a woman to put up with him.
Now but before a fool’s opinion of himself,” the brown man cried, “the Gods are powerless. Oh, yes, and envious, too!
Well, nobody can live longer in peace than his neighbor chooses. Nevertheless, it is not fair.
Azra, it must be recorded, had never any confidence in her son; and was the only woman, Jurgen felt, who really understood him.