A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined being superstitious or useless, prove today on examination to have been of immense value to mankind.

— Lafcadio Hearn

But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth that is the happiness of being truly loved.

— Lafcadio Hearn

For this reason, to study English literature without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete.

— Lafcadio Hearn

It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers that mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect than in morality.

— Lafcadio Hearn

The poet or the storyteller who cannot give the reader a little ghostly pleasure at times never can be either a really great writer or a great thinker.

— Lafcadio Hearn

There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry - the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny.

— Lafcadio Hearn

The Shadow-maker shapes forever.

— Lafcadio Hearn

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministration so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.

— Lafcadio Hearn