kindness it is

"For kindness it is, that ever calls forth kindness."

[Sophocles in Ajax, verse 522)

the mask be torn away

"Yes, it is better to watch a man in doubt
and danger, see what he is when all's gone wrong;
for only then will truth come from the heart,
the mask be torn away, the man remain."

[Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book III, Lines 55-58]

all things slowly weaken and fall to ruin

"The aged plowman sighs and shakes his head
again and again -- all that work gone for naught! --
compares the present times with times gone by,
and often remarks how lucky his father was.
Discouraged, the vintner tends his tattered vines,
curses the weather, and prays till heaven is tired;
he growls of an age long gone, when men were good,
and found life easy though their world was small,
and the land that each man held was then far less.
He does not see that all things slowly weaken
and fall to ruin, worn out by ages past."

[Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book II, Lines 1164-1174]

everyone who believes thinks

“No one believes anything unless one first thought it believable… Everything that is believed is believed after being preceded by thought…. Not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking.” 

[Augustine]

gifted or insane

"Hence, the poetic art belongs either to a naturally gifted person or an insane one..."

[Aristotle, Poetics, Chapter 17, Section 1455a]

which one among our men are fakes?

"O Zeus, you've given us the clear criteria to test
if gold is counterfeit: so why is there no stamp of guarantee
marked on the human body to discriminate which ones
among our men are fakes?"

[Medea in Euripides' Medea]

the generation of leaves on the ground

"As is the generation of leaves on the ground, so is that of humanity." 

[Glaukos to Diomedes on the battlefield near Troy, from Homer's The Iliad, Book VI, Line 146]

many sacred veils

"We cannot be enlightened by the divine rays except they be hidden within the covering of many sacred veils." - Dionysius