“In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.”

“They adored each other; but still the permanent and the immutable subsist. We may love and laugh, pout, clasp hands, smile, and exchange endearments, but that does not affect eternity. Two lovers hide in the dusk of evening, amid flowers and the twittering of birds, and enchant each other with their hearts shinning in their eyes; but the stars in their course still circle through infinite space.”

“For prying into any human affairs, none are equal to those whom it does not concern.”

“Nature sometimes joins her effects and her appearances to our acts with a sort of serious and intelligent appropriateness; as if she would compel us to reflect.”

“Spira, spera.(breathe, hope)”

“He held his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat was carefully buttoned: he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there.”

“where there is no more hope, song remains.”