Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it we are schooled in it, we live by it and we rarely realize it.’ – Book 3, Chapter 16

An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences.

It came to Mr. Blood, as he trudged forward under the laden apple-trees on that fragrant, delicious July morning, that man—as he had long suspected—was the vilest work of God, and that only a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best exterminated.

But they were fated to misunderstand each other.

Do you know, André, I sometimes think that you have no heart.' 'Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence.

The love that is never to be realized will often remain a man's guiding ideal.

Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.

He was suffering from the loss of an illusion.

When all is said, a man's final judgment of his fellows must be based upon his knowledge of himself

They opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets!

Truth is so often disconcerting.

But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours. ~ Book 1, Chapter 9.

Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.