Ah! How little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?

— H. Rider Haggard

And now it appeared that there was a mysterious Queen clothed by rumor with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal but, to my mind, rather awesome title of She.

— H. Rider Haggard

And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.

— H. Rider Haggard

And what, O Queen, are those things that are dear to a man? Are they not bubbles? Isn't ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is not resting-place among them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number.

— H. Rider Haggard

Be careful when power comes to thee also, lest thou too shouldst smite in thine anger or thy jealousy, for unconquerable strength is a sore weapon in the hands of erring man

— H. Rider Haggard

... For like a rugged tree you are hard and sound at the core.

— H. Rider Haggard

How can a world be good in which Money is the moving power, and Self-interest the guiding star?

— H. Rider Haggard

How true is the saying that the very highest in rank are always the most simple and kindly. It is from your half-and-half sort of people that you get pomposity and vulgarity

— H. Rider Haggard

I am glad to see that you have enough imagination not to be altogether a fool... Yes, it is want of imagination that makes people fools; they won't believe what they can't understand.

— H. Rider Haggard

I closed my eyelids, and imagination, taking up the thread of thought, shot its swift shuttle back across the ages, weaving a picture on their blackness so real and vivid in its details that I could almost for a moment think that I had triumphed o'er the Past, and that my spirit's eyes had pierced the mystery of Time.

— H. Rider Haggard