“We are all, he says, the sport of destiny. Ah, but not quite. Destiny is an intelligent force, moving with purpose.”

“An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences. Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will, and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the very tool used by Fate to shape the destiny of men and nations. Observe it now at work in the affairs of Captain Blood and of some others.”

“Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.”

“There was a great historian lost in Wolverstone. He had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes.”

“Most of this world's misery is the fruit not as priests tell us of wickedness, but of stupidity....And we know that of all stupidities he considered anger the most deplorable.”

“Do you know, André, I sometimes think that you have no heart.' 'Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence.”

“In endeavor itself there is a certain dynamic entertainment, affording an illusion of useful purpose. With achievement the illusion is dispelled. Man's greatest accomplishment is to produce change. The only good in life is study, because study is an endeavor that never reaches fulfillment. It busies a man to the end of his days, and it aims at the only true reality in all this world of shams and deceits.”