Richard Francis Burton

With Hâjî Abdû the soul is not material, for that would be a contradiction of terms. He regards it, with many moderns, as a state of things, not a thing; a convenient word denoting the sense of personality, of individual identity.

I am an individual … a circle touching and intersecting my neighbours at certain points, but nowhere corresponding, nowhere blending.

The Pilgrim holds with St. Augustine Absolute Evil is impossible because it is always rising up into good. He considers the theory of a beneficent or maleficent deity a purely sentimental fancy, contradicted by human reason and the aspect …

Hâjî Abdû has been known to me for more years than I care to record. A native, it is believed, of Dârabghird in the Yezd Province, he always preferred to style himself El-Hichmakani, a facetious "lackab" or surname, meaning "Of No-hall, …

From self-approval seek applause: What ken not men thou kennest, thou! Spurn ev'ry idol others raise: Before thine own Ideal bow: Be thine own Deus: Make self free, liberal as the circling air: Thy Thought to thee an Empire be; break every …

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws. All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell, A breath, a wind, a …

"Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born; "Who drains the score must e'er expect to rue the headache of the morn." Safely he jogs along the way which "Golden Mean" the sages call; Who scales the brow of …

There is no Heav'en, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds, Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to 'fright the fools his cunning blinds. Learn from the mighty Spi'rits of old to set thy foot on Heav'en and Hell; In Life to find thy …

"Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!" Angels and Fools have equal claim To do what Nature bids them do, sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue: Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

"Reason and Instinct!" How we love to play with words that please our pride; Our noble race's mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! For "gift divine" I bid you read the better work of higher brain, From Instinct diff'ering in …

Is not the highest honour his who from the worst hath drawn the best; May not your Maker make the world from matter, an it suit His hest? Nay more, the sordider the stuff the cunninger the workman's hand: Cease, then, your own Almighty …

"Th' immortal mind of mortal man!" we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry; Whose mind but means his sum of thought, an essence of atomic "I." Thought is the work of brain and nerve, in small-skulled idiot poor and mean; In sickness sick, in …

Words, words that gender things!

Yes Truth may be, but 'tis not Here; mankind must seek and find it There, But Where nor I nor you can tell, nor aught earth-mother ever bare.Enough to think that Truth can be: come sit we where the roses glow, Indeed he knows not how to …

"Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav'en, come pay the priest that holds the key;" So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak the last to enter Heaven, — he.

With God's foreknowledge man's free will! what monster-growth of human brain, What powers of light shall ever pierce this puzzle dense with words inane?

"'Tis blessed to believe"; you say: The saying may be true enow And it can add to Life a light: — only remains to show us how.

"Faith mountains move" I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that serves our vanity to feed. "Faith stands unmoved"; and why? Because man's silly fancies still remain, And will remain till …

What see we here? Forms, nothing more! Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye, We know not substance; 'mid the shades shadows ourselves we live and die.

As palace mirror'd in the stream, as vapour mingled with the skies, So weaves the brain of mortal man the tangled web of Truth and Lies.

What is the Truth? was askt of yore. Reply all object Truth is one As twain of halves aye makes a whole; the moral Truth for all is none.

All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.

What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain, When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain?