Man, I have never had a friend.
Followers and allies and companions, if you please, but no friend.
Others--simple folk--would be set singing by a May morning, or a warm tavern fire, or a woman's face.

I have known fellows to whom the earth was so full of little pleasures that after the worst clouts they rose like larks from a furrow.

A wise philosophy--but I had none of it.

I saw always the little pageant of man's life like a child's peep-show beside the dark wastes of eternity.

Ah, I know well I struggled like the rest for gauds and honours, but they were only tools for my ambition.