1
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.Paul Hoffman
2
It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger — how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.Paul Hoffman
3
Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.Paul Hoffman
4
Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’‘ Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ (..)‘And?’‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust. .Paul Hoffman
5
The heart of a man is a small thing but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(..) And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?.Paul Hoffman
6
We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.Paul Hoffman
7
Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.Paul Hoffman
8
Hypocrites, ’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.Paul Hoffman
9
In such a beast as this..." (he means the army)"...it was the collective power that went, collapsing like a long-exhausted animal, at once falling under its own weight as much as that of its enemy. It was a collective death and not a matter of bravery or even strength, and once it was down it was finished as a battle.Paul Hoffman
10
...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.Paul Hoffman
11
Many are called, few are chosen.Paul Hoffman
12
The battle had been as hideous as you might expect between one side who were simply not afraid to die and another who regarded death as merely a door to the eternal life.Paul Hoffman