💬 Quotes

"Women ought to be free—as free as we are,' he declared, making a party platform of his impulse; but as he spoke he knew that if he had had his way, she would have been chained to his hearth-stone forever."

"Ah, my dear, to have a great fortune is not enough in New York: one must know how to use it."

"My aim is to entertain a large class of readers, who would gladly take acquaintance with the graceful fictions of antiquity, but have not time, or inclination, to deal with the original sources."

"Prometheus, the friend of man, filled a hollow reed with the fire he had stolen from the chariot of the sun, and brought it down to earth, thus imparting to mankind the knowledge of the arts and the means of improvement."

"The gods of mythology were beings of superior power, yet possessed of human passions and frailties, serving as mirrors for the hopes, fears, and ideals of the ancient world."

"Orpheus moved his lute with such tender melody that the very trees bent to listen, the wild beasts grew tame, and even the stern rulers of the underworld were melted to tears."

"Niobe, proud of her numerous and beautiful offspring, dared to mock the goddess Latona, bringing down a swift and terrible retribution that left her petrified in eternal grief."

"Without the knowledge of mythology, much of our literature, our art, and even our daily language remains half-understood, for these ancient tales are the very alphabet of imaginative culture."

"The salt of the Earth is seldom sweet: indeed, it has often a very bitter tang."

"To this day I have seldom to look upon the face of any man without seeing something of the grey beast upon it, something of the simian, something of the swine."

"You see, I went on with this research just as lawgivers, theologians, and moralists have been doing for ages past, very much the same question, with only the difference that I have been seeking man directly."

"Their humanity is but piebald; at any moment the beast begins to peep.”"

"Each man to his own work. Moreau had chosen this dark, lonely corner of the earth, far from the interference of law or public opinion, to carry out his monstrous dreams."

"Are we not beasts? ... This is the law. Are we not not beasts?"

"Fears are things you shouldn't talk about, because if you do, they grow."

"He who is afraid of being hurt can never be truly alive."

"I have lived twenty-nine years with the Stirlings, and I've never really lived at all until now."

"There are a good many kinds of success. Some people think making money is success, and some think getting a title is success, and some think being good is success. But the best kind of success is to have lived the life you wanted to live."

"Do you know what it is to be shut up in a tomb? I've been shut up in one for twenty-nine years. The tomb was my mother's house."

"The Blue Castle was a real place, after all. Or perhaps it was just a state of mind that created a real place."