For what man is there who does not prize that gift most rare and beautiful, that one perfect thing which no gold can buy – a woman's unfeigned love? - H. Rider Haggard

. . . there are always plenty of fools in the world and the fool who comes after is just as big as the fool who went before. Death spills the water of wisdom upon the sand . . . and sand is thirsty stuff that soon grows dry again. If it were not so . . . men would soon stop falling in love with women, and yet even great ones . . . fall in love.

. . . these priests, after the fashion of priests all the world over, now aspired to the absolute rule of the race

It is what is in a man that matters . . . not what he looks like outside, as women often used to say to me when I was young