The Egyptian

by Mika Waltari

Nay, I would give much of what I have known and possessed in this world if I might make that journey once more, with youth, keen eyes, and unwearying body restored to me and Minea beside me, her eyes gleaming like moonlight on the river.

“Right and wrong? Right is what we desire, and wrong is what our neighbors desire. That is a very simple principle that facilitates both life and statesmanship and that in my opinion differs little from the teaching of the gods in the plains. As I understand it, these gods hold that to be right which the wealthy desire and that wrong which the poor desire.”

truth is an unsheathed knife in the hands of a child and readily turns against its holder.

When I knew this, I knew also that revenge brings no satisfaction. Its sweetness is brief and it turns against the avenger, to eat at his heart like fire.

EVERYONE has seen water running from a water clock. So also does human life trickle away, though it is measured not by water but by events. This is a profound truth, to be grasped only in old age when a man’s time runs away to nothing, in monotony.

Take life quietly; it is not your fault that the world is as it is—that has ever been so and ever will!”