Neila

“Who has not observed this fact with women, or even with men, endowed with a remarkable intelligence, but afflicted by nervousness? When they are happy, at peace, content with their surroundings, they cause us to admire their precious gifts; it is literally the truth that speaks through their mouths. A migraine, some small puncturing of their amour-propre is enough to change everything. The luminous intelligence, abrupt, convulsive, shrunken, now reflects only a self that is irritated, suspicious, coquettish, doing all it can to be unattractive.”
― Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah

“Look not too long in the face of the fire O man!...believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. Tomorrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp - all others but liars!
Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's dismal swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean which is the dark side of this Earth, and which is two thirds of this Earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true - not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was The Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. 'All is vanity'. ALL. The wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave yards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rosseau, poor devils all sick of men; and throughout a carefree lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly; - not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb stones, and break the green damp mould unfathomable wounderous Solomon.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“there is no recollection which time does not put an end to, and no pain which death does not remove.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“ce que nous croyons notre amour, notre jalousie, n'est pas une même passion continue, indivisible. Ils se composent d'une infinité d'amours successifs, de jalousies différentes et qui sont éphémères, mais par leur multitude ininterrompue donnent l'impression de la continuité, l'illusion de l'unité.”
― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way