Cind

“... men of sense often learn from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learned from a friend, but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.”
― Aristophanes, Birds

“Because it’s only to you I can tell everything; because I must, because I need you, because tomorrow I shall fly from the clouds, because tomorrow life is ending and beginning.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“So violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death