The Royal Succession

Days lived, whether full or empty, whether busy or serene, are but days gone by, and the ashes of the past weigh the same in every hand.

There's the gratitude of sons-in-law for you. You poison a king so that they may take his place, and then they do exactly as they please without consideration for anyone!

Nothing moves an older man more than a confession of inexperience from a younger, particularly if the latter be his social superior.

Los días vividos, pletóricos o vacíos, tranquilos o agitados, son todos por igual días pasados, y la ceniza del pasado pesa lo mismo en todas las manos.

When one explains one’s unhappiness, translates it into rational terms, it is because one has already admitted it to oneself. The shock, the almost physical pressure, was slowly giving way to the second stage of sorrow: the cruelty of awareness.

«En honor a la verdad, sería preferible que el rey fuera elegido; sólo los apetitos corruptos de los hombres y su manera de actuar hacen preferible la herencia a la elección.»

more or less in keeping with the intuition, common to the greater part of men, that death is a falling into a dark and immense silence, into an indefinite unconsciousness.