“Hope lies to mortals
And most believe her,
But man's deceiver
Was never mine.”

“The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.”

“You cannot avoid mortality. But you can choose your way of meeting it. And that is the most that any man can hope for.
Live well, my son.”

“I never knew a mocker who was not mocked, … a deceiver who was not deceived, or a proud man who was not humbled.”

“Sometimes the most preposterous lies are the most believable.”

“To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead.”

“I'm afraid I do believe that all earthly love can die - since man is mortal, why not also his most human feature? - and for me pretensions such as love that dies was never love, etc. belong to schoolgirls' albums.”

“Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.”

“Hope will lie to you, but lust is what it is; it never lies.”

“As palace mirror'd in the stream, as vapour mingled with the skies,
So weaves the brain of mortal man the tangled web of Truth and Lies.”