The reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities.

When a man did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted.

Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy.

In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men.

They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State.