"The House of Pomegranates" by Oscar Wilde

• "The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer"
• "strange passion for beauty that was destined to have so great an influence over his life"
• "the secrets of art are best learned in secret, and ... Beauty, like Wisdom, loves the lonely worshiper."
• "Far away, in an orchard, a nightingale was singing.  A faint perfume of jasmine came through the open window. "
• "Never before had he felt so keenly, or with such exquisite joy, the magic and the mystery of beautiful things."

• "‘In war,’ answered the weaver, ‘the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. "
• "We have chains, though no eye beholds them; and are slaves, though men call us free."
• "Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her.  Misery wakes us in the morning, and Shame sits with us at night. "
• "through the window he saw the long grey fingers of the dawn clutching at the fading stars."
• "To toil for a hard master is bitter, but to have no master to toil for is more bitter still."
• "the nightingale herself, who sang so sweetly in the orange groves at night that sometimes the Moon leaned down to listen"
• "What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul."