Quotes from Rafael Sabatini

A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,' said he. 'Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.

When all is said, a man's final judgment of his fellows must be based upon his knowledge of himself

Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it.' – Book 3, Chapter 16

The love that is never to be realized will often remain a man's guiding ideal.

Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.

...it is human nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous.

They opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets!

Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith.

In life we pay for the evil that in life we do.

Truth is so often disconcerting.

There remained the sea, which is free to all, and particularly alluring to those who feel themselves at war with humanity.

To do what you imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not systems.

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

it is human nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous.

But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours. ~ Book 1, Chapter 9

A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,' said he. 'Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.

It came to Mr. Blood, as he trudged forward under the laden apple-trees on that fragrant, delicious July morning, that man—as he had long suspected—was the vilest work of God, and that only a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best exterminated.

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

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony.

But they were fated to misunderstand each other.

Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit

To do what you imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not systems.

He was suffering from the loss of an illusion.

Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it.' – Book 3, Chapter 16