“We are but phantoms, and the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud-shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights - so be it! But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dream-stuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together!”

“It is as though she was a phantom watching from the shadows. This at least is how she 'writes' herself: as an absence on which others projected their desires and anxieties.”

“Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?---"On death”

“XXVIII"Truth," said a traveller,"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;"Often have I been to it,"Even to its highest tower,"From whence the world looks black.""Truth," said a traveller,"Is a breath, a wind,"A shadow, a phantom;"Long have I pursued it,"But never have I touched "The hem of its garment."And I believed the second traveller;For truth was to meA breath, a wind, A shadow, a phantom,And never had I touchedThe hem of its garment.”

“As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.”

“Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.”