“to ask for anything of consequence from friends who cannot refuse is uncivilized.”

prophecies do not alter fate, only confirm it.

What harm is there in dreaming, if it eases pain? What good is reality, if it blots out hope? Can a man’s mind be washed without bleaching his soul?

Principles have a way of yielding to power.

The young see what they wish to see. The old see what they do not wish.

you must not use wood to put out the fire.

Like most Chinese, I am basically a fatalist – too sophisticated for religion and too superstitious to deny the gods.

If mortals wait until the gods remake the world to their liking to be happy, they are already in hell.

Biggest affirmative argument I know in favor of ‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ is just the way you feel inside you that nothin’ can stop you from livin’ on.

Most people are in favor of change, as long as they can continue to do things the same as they always have.

Fortune, that favors fools.

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

Sekhmet crawled onto Ramses’s lap and began to purr. ‘The creature oozes like a furry slug,’ said Ramses, eyeing it without favor.

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.