“How strange it is, that a fool or a knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty!”

“He is to be pitied, to tell the truth, in his coming into the world as a king, for he is but a man--and having to waste himself on a pack of nonsense instead of sticking to our art, in which he makes good way.”

— Alexandre Dumas《The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty》

“But ere that time he had studied to good effect, and not books alone, but the world around him too, and the world within.”

— Dante Alighieri《The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri》

“It is better to honor a good man in life than to worship him after he is dead.”

— José Rizal《Rizal's own story of his life》

“And at last he got to the mines, and he was condemned to stay there for life--for life, just for writing a good, noble, splendid book.”

— Edith Nesbit《The Railway Children》

“I have thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to me in preserving me in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life.”

— Mary Rowlandson《Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson》

“Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett《The Secret Garden》

“The friend praying at her side was forgotten, the world had vanished, every law of reason was annihilated, all knowledge was out of her mind--every hard-won conquest of human empiricism was effaced.”

— Wilhelmine von Hillern《On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau》

“He had acknowledged that he himself was not devoid of blame; the woman, he had avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, and Villiers felt that this man, once his friend, had been an actor in scenes evil beyond the power of words.”

— Arthur Machen《The Great God Pan》

“The Soul is brought by the Truth to a knowledge of the Heavenly Life (Coelia), and is led, through repentance, to seek forgiveness and to desire a holier life.”

— Edmund Spenser《Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I》

“If one should dream that such a world began In some slow devil's heart, that hated man, Who should deny him?--God, as thou art clean, Suffer not this, oh, suffer not this sin To be, that e'er I look on such a day!”

— Sophocles《Oedipus King of Thebes: Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes》

“Herein doth consist happiness of life, for a man to know thoroughly the true nature of everything; what is the matter, and what is the form of it: with all his heart and soul, ever to do that which is just, and to speak the truth.”

— Marcus Aurelius《Meditations》

“Alas howe my soule and bodye were lothe to leaue one an another, the sorrowe whereof made me vnwilling to intertaine so cruel an enemy as death: whereupon I plucking vp a good heart, thought thus.”

— Francesco Colonna《Hypnerotomachia Poliphili》