Alexandre Silva

“The trait that astounded and confounded cynicism was his apparent unselfishness. Never, in any man who wielded such power, did Henry Adams meet anything like it. The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies; a diseased appetite, like a passion for drink or perverted tastes; one can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of egotism it stimulates; and Turlow Weeds was one of the exceptions; a rare imune. He thought apparently not of himself, but of the person he was talking with. He held himself naturally in the background. He was not jealous. He grasped power, but not office. He distributed offices by handfuls without caring to take them. He had the instinct of empire: he gave, but he did not receive.”
― Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

“A joke that required to be laughed at was, with him, not worth uttering. He could appreciate by a keener sense than that of his ears the success of his wit, and would see in the eyes of his audience whether or no he was understood and appreciated.”
― Anthony Trollope , Barchester Towers

“Você pode levar Maomé até o altar, Jeeves, mas não pode forçá-lo a casar com a montanha”
― Wodehouse P. G

“The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority.”
― Yukio Mishima, Sun & Steel