Automata

“Pandora's box had been opened and monsters had come out. But there had been something hidden at the bottom of Pandora's box. Something wonderful.

Hope.”
― Lisa Marie Rice, Breaking Danger

“Remember that you must behave as at a banquet. Is anything brought round to you? Put out your hand, and take a moderate share. Does it pass you? Do not stop it. Is it not come yet? Do not yearn in desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. So with regard to children , wife, office, riches; and you will some time or other be worthy to feast with the gods. And if you do not so much as take the things which are set before you, but are able even to forego them, then you will not only be worthy to feast with the gods, but to rule with them also. For, by thus doing, Diogenes and Heraclitus, and others like them, deservedly became divine, and were so recognized.”
― Epictetus Epictetus, The Enchiridion of Epictetus - A Classic Handbook of Stoic Philosophy and Practical Wisdom

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Her age did not matter. It was the years she had lived before me that I envied.”
― Graham Greene