The Gambler

What am I? I am zero—nothing. What shall I be tomorrow? I may be risen from the dead, and have begun life anew. For still, I may discover the man in myself, if only my manhood has not become utterly shattered.

Most of us are so bounteously endowed with intellect as to require also a spice of genius to choose the right form of behaviour. And genius is lacking in us for the reason that so little genius at all exists.

Why have my absurd, senseless losses of today raised a doubt in my mind? Yet I am still positive that, so soon as ever I begin to play for myself, I shall infallibly win.

I repeat that I am your slave—and slaves cannot be shamed or offended.

consequently, I was momentarily awed into silence by this expression of resentment.

I deduced from the scene one conclusion which seemed to me reliable—namely, that in the flow of fortuitous chances there is, if not a system, at all events a sort of order.

I look upon the generally accepted opinion concerning the folly and the grossness of hoping to win at gambling as a thing even more absurd.

she had looked upon me in the same light that the old Empress did upon her servant—the Empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself before her slave, since she did not account a slave a man.

"If one is a man of self-respect," I went on, "one risks abuse by so doing, and is forced to put up with insults of every kind.

What I have said I have said merely as a warning. To do so is no more than my right.