It is awkward to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man.
Memory 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 shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.
We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes.
Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo.
It is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the argument, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we become; indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from moral petrification, if not from moral corruption.
And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.
We may taste of every turn of chance – now rule as Kings, now serve as Slaves; now love, now hate; now prosper, and now perish. But still, through all, we are the same; for this is the marvel of Identity.
The law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money.
We white people think that we know everything.
It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be?
It is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its hinges.
As for the girl, since she is well favoured, she shall brew the king’s beer, and be numbered amongst the king’s wives-unless, indeed, he is pleased to give her to me.
Ah! If man would but see that hope is from within and not from without – that he himself must work out his own salvation.
I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly.
My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do.
There is no loneliness like the loneliness of crowds, especially to those who are unaccustomed to them.
Everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it.
The acorn of ambition often grows into an oak from which men hang.
Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.
We were like confirmed opium-eaters: in our moments of reason we well knew the deadly nature of our pursuit, but we certainly were not prepared to abandon its terrible delights.
A sharp spear needs no polish.