Sophia

“Perfectionism makes essential projects hard to start, self-doubt makes them hard to finish, and trying to do too much, too fast, makes it hard to sustain momentum.”
― Greg McKeown, Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

“I don't wish to be without my brains, tho' they doubtless interfere with a blind faith which would be very comfortable”
― Ada Lovelace

“Those who do not believe that a woman can make a man happy through the twenty-four hours of the day have never possessed a woman like Henriette. The happiness which filled me, if I can express it in that manner, was much greater when I conversed with her even than when I held her in my arms. She had read much, she had great tact, and her taste was naturally excellent; her judgment was sane, and, without being learned, she could argue like a mathematician, easily and without pretension, and in everything she had that natural grace which is so charming. She never tried to be witty when she said something of importance, but accompanied her words with a smile which imparted to them an appearance of trifling, and brought them within the understanding of all. In that way she would give intelligence even to those who had none, and she won every heart. Beauty without wit offers love nothing but the material enjoyment of its physical charms, whilst witty ugliness captivates by the charms of the mind, and at last fulfils all the desires of the man it has captivated.”
― Giacomo Casanova, The Story of My Life

“Man is an animal suspended in a web of significance that he himself has spun. —Max Weber”
― Christopher Ryan, Civilized to Death: What Was Lost on the Way to Modernity