Isn't wine prohibited here?" the boy asked. "It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil," said the alchemist. "It's what comes out of their mouths that is.

So you see, Good and Evil have the same face; it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being.

In the beginning there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant, and look where we have ended up today.

It's now what enters men's mouths that's evil. It's what comes out of their mouths that is.

If evil exists its to be found in our fears.

Men who have nothing to lose never give a thought for eternal life.

Evil would never bring Good, however much they wanted to believe that it would. By the time they discovered the truth, it would be too late.

Once the soul has left the body it had to walk across a bridge as narrow as a knife edge, with paradise on the right and, on the left, a series of circles that lead down into the darkness inside the earth. Before crossing the bridge, each person had to place all his virtues in his right hand and all his sins in his left, and the imbalance between the two meant that the person always fell towards the side to which his actions on Earth had inclined him.