One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged. - Heinrich Heine

Besides, ghost-stories are even more blood-curdling if you are reading them on a journey, especially at night, in a town, in a house, in a room where you have never been before. How many horrific events may already have taken place on the very spot where you are lying? — that is what you cannot help wondering.

Perdona a tus enemigos, pero nunca antes de que los cuelguen.

Ah, among the unhappiest blunders a man makes is this, that he childishly misjudges the value of the gifts that nature bestows on him most easily, and, contrariwise, considers most precious the endowments that come hardest. The precious stone buried in the earth's entrails, the pearl hidden in the ocean depths — these are what people regard as the greatest treasures; but they would look down on them if nature strewed them underfoot like pebbles and seashells. We are casual about our own excellences; we try to deceive ourselves about out weaknesses so long that we end up taking them for eminent virtues. Once, after a concert by Paganini, when I confronted the master with passionate praises for his violin playing, he interrupted me with these words: 'But today how did you like my bows, my genuflections?