Rafael Sabatini citations

“When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion—the noblest religion any man could have to guide him.”

“But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours.”

“… it is human nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous.”

“A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,’ said he. ‘Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.”

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

“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.”

“To do what you imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not systems.”

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

“Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.”

“But they were fated to misunderstand each other.”

“Only he who is without anything is without enemies.”

“Truth is so often disconcerting.”

“Bestir, ladies! To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day.”

“It was heroic!"
"Heroic, is it? Bedad, it's epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius.”

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

“You have changed a certainty into a possibility, and I hate possibilities — God of God! I have lived on possibilities, and infernally near starved on them.”

“Mr Pollexfen was at one and the same time right and wrong—a condition much more common than is generally supposed.”

“"Sir!" she checked him. "I think you are talking treason."
"I hope I am not obscure," said he.”