Perchance Quotes & Sayings

Wrapped in his sad-colored cloak, the Day, like a Puritan, standeth
Stern in the joyless fields, rebuking the lingering color,
Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,
Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top. — Bayard Taylor

A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself
and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the race, which pales before the light of common day. — Henry David Thoreau

I wish to try my hand at a novel," he said. "Just scribbling, I assure you, but it strikes me as such a noble art, requiring none of the monetary resources of opera or drama, nor the erudition of poetry. Perchance a publisher could be found. I'd be satisfied by the printing of even a score of copies, if only to hold the bound work in my hands. It gives a unique satisfaction, I assume, the writing of a novel. — Kyle Muntz

(5) [O YOU who deny the truth!] Should We, perchance, withdraw this reminder from you altogether, seeing that you are people bent on wasting your own selves? — Anonymous

All blame is a poor stance, if you perchance upon it. — Kamini Arichandran

Tomorrow! It is a period nowhere to be found in all the registers of time, unless, perchance, in the fool's calendar. — Charles Caleb Colton

Now there was great rejoicing at the rumor of Alderic's quest, for all folk knew that he was a cautious man, and they deemed that he would succeed and enrich the world, and they rubbed their hands in the cities at the thought of largesse; and there was joy among all men in Alderic's country, except perchance among the lenders of money, who feared they would soon be paid. And there was rejoicing also because men hoped that when the Gibbelins were robbed of their hoard, they would shatter their high-built bridge and break the golden chains that bound them to the world, and drift back, they and their tower, to the moon, from which they had come and to which they rightly belonged. There was little love for the Gibbelins, though all men envied their hoard.
("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins") — Lord Dunsany

But God, who is the beginning of all things, is not to be regarded as a composite being, lest perchance there should be found to exist elements prior to the beginning itself, out of which everything is composed, whatever that be which is called composite. — Origen

The world is big ... May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life's full measure. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Today is your own. Tomorrow perchance may never come. — Swami Sivananda

I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous case - the total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the chain of slavery, and set the black man free. — R.M. Ballantyne

To sleep perchance to dream — William Shakespeare

God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency. — Robert Browning

How strange or odd some'er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on. — William Shakespeare

I do beseech you- Though I perchance am vicious in my guess , that your wisdom yet From one that so imperfectly conjects Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble Out of his scattering and unsure observance. — William Shakespeare

Then there came a vision to me, a vision that was sent in answer to my prayer, or, perchance, it was a madness born of my sorrows. — H. Rider Haggard

The time is probably not far distant when music will stand revealed perchance as the mightiest of the arts, and certainly as the one art peculiarly representative of our modern world, with its intense life, complex civilization, and feverish self-consciousness. — Hugh Reginald Haweis

... the neurotic torture of being seductive regularly - by the night: the more that perchance the struggle always is unconscious. — Mary MacLane

Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or perchance of a hundred centuries. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the tradesmen's doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window. — Charles Dickens

The child watched its disappearance--he was astounded but dreamy. His stupefaction was complicated by a sense of the dark reality of existence. It seemed as if there were experience in this dawning being. Did he, perchance, already exercise judgment? Experience coming too early constructs, sometimes, in the obscure depths of a child's mind, some dangerous balance--we know not what--in which the poor little soul weighs God.

Feeling himself innocent, he yielded. There was no complaint-THE IRREPROACHABLE DOES NOT REPROACH.
(The Man Who Laughs) — Victor Hugo

Men have a singular desire to be good without being good for anything, because, perchance, they think vaguely that so it will be good for them in the end. — Henry David Thoreau

A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance will neither last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all; for the desire dieth when it is attained, and the affection perisheth when it is satisfied. — Walter Raleigh

Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it. — Giordano Bruno

The slender debt to Nature's quickly paid,Discharged, perchance, with greater ease than made. — Francis Quarles

Men are sponges, which, to pour out, receive;
Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.
For in best understandings sin began,
Angels sinn'd first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not ; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white integrity. — John Donne

Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are. — Henry David Thoreau

Come back again, old heart! Ah me! Methinks in those thy coward fears There might, perchance, a courage be, That fails in these the manlier years; Courage to let the courage sink, Itself a coward base to think, Rather than not for heavenly light Wait on to show the truly right. — Arthur Hugh Clough

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show. — Henry David Thoreau

When we consider the weak and nerveless periods of some literary men, who perchance in feet and inches come up to the standard oftheir race, and are not deficient in girth also, we are amazed at the immense sacrifice of thews and sinews. What! these proportions, these bones,
and this their work! Hands which could have felled an ox have hewed this fragile matter which would not have tasked a lady's fingers! Can this be a stalwart man's work, who has a marrow in his back and a tendon Achilles in his heel? — Henry David Thoreau

A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earnedin the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. — Henry David Thoreau

Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself. — Henry David Thoreau

Still men be clever and in an hundred centuries or more, perchance will have found a way to journey thither; when that they have discovered and understood all things on the earth. What will a man be like in the xxvii century, or even the xx? Very like unto us, I do expect; I do not think that man's nature shall change; nor do I anticipate that he will be the wiser than we, for all his learning, for 'tis a part of that nature which is ours that we do not heed the lessons of history: neither our own, nor the world's. — Chico Kidd

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselves unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance. — Henry David Thoreau

While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered between his teeth: 'Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday.'
No one has ever discovered to what this monologue referred. Yes, perchance, this monologue had some connection with the last occasion on which he had dined, three days before, for it was now Friday. — Victor Hugo

Let no one think that I do not love the old ministers. They were, probably, the best men in their generation, and they deserve that their biographies should fill the pages of the town histories. If I could but hear the "glad tidings" of which they tell, and which, perchance, they heard, I might write in a worthier strain than this. — Henry David Thoreau

8.
"For who would trust the seeming sighs
Of wife or paramour?
Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes
We late saw streaming o'er.
For pleasures past I do not grieve,
Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.

9.
"And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea:
But why should I for others groan,
When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands;
But long ere I come back again,
He'd tear me where he stands.

10.
"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.
Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!
And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
My native Land - Good Night! — George Gordon Byron

Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares,
And think perchance they'll sell; if not,
The lustre of the better yet to show
Shall show the better. — William Shakespeare

The Skeleton: We have wisdom, if you like - a dull and dusty wisdom, and I would give it all for a good draught of Chian wine.4 Perchance 'tis something to know that bodies are made of dust and water, the last of which is evaporable, and the former capable of dissolvement. For this is all our knowledge, in spite of much that is known and spoken of hierophant and philosopher. However, unlike the lore and wisdom of these, it may be contained without discommodation by one skull. — Clark Ashton Smith

The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. — Henry David Thoreau

And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been. — H. Rider Haggard

Perchance the chemist is already damned and the guardian the blackest. — L. Wolfe Gilbert

All this is simply your reaction to my Gifts. You never loved me before, not in all those years. Now that you who I
what I can do, you've convinced yourself it's more than it is. Its simple instinct."
"Perchance you're right. But the result is the same, isn't it? We were meant to be together in life. That's our law, because that is our instinct, the natural order of our kind. Strongest mates to strongest."
She took the steps necessary to stand before him. She held out a hand to him and he accepted it, lightly, his fingers cradled hers. "This is not life, Rhys."
"No." He studied their locked hands, the pulse in her wrist. "But it is still love. Just as I loved you when we were young
"
"Stop it," she whispered.
"My heart beast for you." He released her fingers and gave her that faint, sardonic smile.
"I am going to marry Hayden."
"I know. And I'm still going to love you." The smile deepened. "Sorry. — Shana Abe

Despite all of our incessant tinkering, we can't manufacture the things we most desperately need. And if perchance we do, they will never be more than pathetically emaciated facsimiles that will leave us emaciated. And until we finally realize that we can only 'find' these things, we will never sense any compulsion to 'find' God. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

If perchance a friend should betray you; if he forms a subtle plot to get hold of what is yours; if people should try to spread evil reports about you, would you tamely submit to all this without flying into a rage? — Moliere

If perchance you should falter during the journey, a hand would be there to support you. If that should be wanting, God, who alone could take that hand from you, would Himself accomplish its work. — Louis Pasteur

Everybody in the world ought to care for books, and if there are some who do not, why that is a perfectly convincing reason why books ought to be given to them, to be a rebuke to them and, perchance, to rescue them from the error of their ways. — Willis Johnson

For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation? — Henry David Thoreau

In any important relationship, we must always ask should we stay or leave. Perchance the correct answer exits in the reason for hanging on and the reason for finally moving on. Perchance self-sacrifice is required. Conversely, perhaps selfishness is called for as an act of self-preservation. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. — Henry David Thoreau

For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since
he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered
yet more that myself, who was to him a second self, could live, he
being dead. Well said one of his friend, "Thou half of my soul"; for
I felt that my soul and his soul were "one soul in two bodies": and
therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved.
And therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved
should die wholly. — Augustine Of Hippo

Men must speak English who can write Sanskrit; they must speak a modern language who write, perchance, an ancient and universal one. — Henry David Thoreau

Defeat I shall not know. It shall not touch me. I will meet it with true thinking. Resisting it will be my strengthening. But if, perchance, the day shall give to me the bitter cup, it shall sweeten in the drinking. — Walter Russell

Aha! What villains are these, that trespass upon my private lands! Come to scorn at my fall, perchance? Draw, you knaves, you dogs! — J.K. Rowling

Nobody knows what death is,
nor whether to man
it is perchance the greatest of blessings,
yet people fear it as if they surely knew
it to be the worse of evils. — Socrates

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream - For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life — William Shakespeare

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,
to penetrate to the shores of its Lake Tchad, and discover the source of its Nile, perchance the Mountains of the Moon? Who knows what fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are to be found? In the Mountains of the Moon, in the Central Africa of the night, there is where all Niles have their hidden heads. The expeditions up the Nile as yet extend but to the Cataracts, or perchance to the mouth of the White Nile; but it is the black Nile that concerns us. — Henry David Thoreau

Hamlet at 70: "To sleep, perchance to dream. To awaken, perchance to go to the bathroom." — Robert Breault

Take care lest perchance you fall into the mistake of thinking to gain more by being merciful than by being just; for to pardon him too easily that has transgressed is to wrong him that transgresses not. — Baldassare Castiglione

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth
certainly the machine will wear out ... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. — Henry David Thoreau

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return; prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk. — Henry David Thoreau

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate ... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. — Henry David Thoreau

Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more western planet ... It took but little art, a simple application of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining isles of space. Do we not see in the firmament the lights carried along the shore by night, as Columbus did? Let us not despair or mutiny. — Henry David Thoreau

I have often perplexed myself over what I saw in Nelle Snyder's aged face at that moment. It was no look of paranoia. It was a look of waiting. Perpetual waiting. That look was to come back to me sixteen years later when I heard Rose's narration at the end of James Cameron's Titanic, with its line about survivors "waiting for an absolution that never came." Yet the waiting I saw in Nelle Snyder's face seemed larger even than a waiting for absolution. It seemed vaster even than Titanic herself. Call it the waiting of the Mother of all Perished Vessels. Or of a Ship of Honeymoon Dreams perchance, with a passenger list spanning all humanity, that once proudly sailed but was lost, aeons ago, and sank to a dark, unreachable abode where nothing whatsoever can be grasped about her except her perplexing power still to haunt us. — James Glaeg

So there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to nature, it dies; and so a man. — Henry David Thoreau

There could be no eldest son for her, and younger sons were indelicate things, necessary, but not to be much spoken of. Younger sons had none of the privileges of obscurity; it was their plain duty to remain hidden until some disaster perchance promoted them to their brother's places, and, since this was their function, it was desirable that they should keep themselves wholly suitable for succession. — Evelyn Waugh

My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself and heaven alone. When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry - and often find it, too - whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonize with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart. — Anne Bronte

The only way to stop a nightmare is to open your eyes, if perchance you realize you were dreaming — Bangambiki Habyarimana

Rivulet, seek a better place for your limpid waters to reflect the brightness of the sun, for the desert will one day dry you up," the god of waters would have said, if perchance one existed. "Crows, there is more food in the forests than among rocks and sand," the god of the birds would have said. "Plants, spread your seeds far from here, because the world is full of humid, fertile ground, and you will grow more beautiful," the god of flowers would have said. — Anonymous

Paracelsus At times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages' way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out - not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again. — Robert Browning

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Despite the perturbations of the world, life goes on.
The sky presents an endless canopy of translucent blue. The still air is suffused with sunshine.
Perhaps tomorrow the beneficent clouds will gather and it will finally rain. The earth will cool and revive and in that seminal moment all our sins perchance will be washed away.
It might happen.
But somehow I doubt it. — John Dolan

It is the missed opportunity that counts, and in a love that vainly yearns from behind prison bars you have perchance the love supreme. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Down Time's quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail
Our Port a secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the Wind
Or schedule of the Tide — Emily Dickinson

It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect (teleia) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day. — Henry David Thoreau

If thou marry beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year. — Walter Raleigh

Hey, I notice you look like you're coming down off a meth binge and smell vaguely of algae. Were you perchance dancing with a snakebit Margo Roth Spiegelman a couple of hours ago? — John Green

To die, to sleep -
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub,
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come ... — William Shakespeare

She was not happy
she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life
this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she leaned? But if there were somewhere a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! How impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight. — Gustave Flaubert

Die ere thou diest - dying, then thou diest not:
Die not - perchance then, dying, thou shalt die and rot. — Angelus Silesius

There is no expeditious road To pack and label men for God, And save them by the barrel-load. Some may perchance, with strange surprise, Have blundered into Paradise. — Francis Thompson

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! — Henry David Thoreau

In fact, I shall drink several, and perchance the wine will send me straight to Paradise that I may meet her in person and ... "
Friar Lorenzo sprung forward and hissed, for no apparent reason, "Before it throws you from grace, Messer Romeo, bridle your tongue!"
The young man grinned, " ... pay my respects. — Anne Fortier

Man toils, and strives, and wastes his little life to claim
At last the transient glory of a splendid name, And have, perchance, in marble mockery a bust, Poised on a pedestal, above his sleeping dust. — Andrew Jackson Downing

Perchance to dream
"What are you doing here, Ariel? I would have thought you'd be halfway to Timbuktu."
- lisa mantchev perchance to dream — Lisa Mantchev

And now to sleep, to dream...perchance to fart. — Anthony Bourdain

I decided if I were ever to get into booze and woman, my line would be Excuse me, madam, but I would really love to bed and muss you ... Are you perchance free this evening? — David Levithan

3. Count not thyself better than others, lest perchance thou appear worse in the sight of God, who knoweth what is in man. Be not proud of thy good works, for God's judgments are of another sort than the judgments of man, and what pleaseth man is ofttimes displeasing to Him. If thou hast any good, believe that others have more, and so thou mayest preserve thy humility. It is no harm to thee if thou place thyself below all others; but it is great harm if thou place thyself above even one. Peace is ever with the humble man, but in the heart of the proud there is envy and continual wrath. — Thomas A Kempis

Perchance God will pity a race that sought the better angels of its nature and found only its lesser demons. — Robert Breault

Perchance, I would listen. Have you said anything? — Joan Bauer

Beckon The Sea, I'll Come To The ... Shed Seven Tears, Perchance Seven Years ... — Terri Farley

The continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward and is lost to our sight, but under its new horizon it carries the same waters which it gathered under ours, and its unseen valleys are made glad by the offerings which are borne down to them from the past,
flowers, perchance, the germs of which its own waves had planted on the banks of Time. — John Greenleaf Whittier

There's some ill planet reigns:
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
The king's will be perform'd! — William Shakespeare

I have attempted to give you a glimpse ... of what there may be of soul in chemistry. But it may have been in vain. Perchance the chemist is already damned and the guardian of the pearly gates had decreed that of all the black arts, chemistry is the blackest. But if the chemist has lost his soul, he will not have lost his courage and as he descends into the inferno, sees the rows of glowing furnaces and sniffs the homey fumes of brimstone, he will call out:
Asmodeus, hand me a test tube. — G.N.Lewis

Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine? — Larry Wall

I am not prone to weeping as our sex commonly are; the want of which vain dew perchance shall dry your pities;
but I have that honorable grief lodged here which burns worse than tears drown. — William Shakespeare

A normal mother might have said, "Hey, I notice you look like you're coming down off a meth binge and smell vaguely of algae. Were you perchance dancing with a snakebit Margo Roth Spiegelman a couple hours ago?" But no. They preferred dreams. I showered, put on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. I was late, but then again, I was always late. — John Green

I've noticed the Fair Folk often say 'perhaps' when there is a truth they want to hide," Clary said. "It keeps you from having to give a straight answer."
"Perhaps so," said the Queen with an amused smile.
"'Mayhap' is a good word too," Alec suggested.
"Also 'perchance,'" Izzy said.
"I see nothing wrong with 'maybe'," said Simon. "A little modern, but the gist of the idea comes across. — Cassandra Clare