“The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist.”

“To say "all that which does not exist" is to introduce, effectively, a new concept, but it does not bring into existence anything more than that very concept which it introduces. That is, a certain entity about which we know nothing except that it bears the name of "all that which does not exist.”

“A way of using words to say things which could not possibly be said in any other way, things which in a sense do not exist till they are born … in poetry.”

“Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.”

“The fact is we all know that there exists in the world an order different from that in which we pass our days. If we reveal its existence people think that we are crazy.”

“We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.”