Dante

“To see human beings in agony, to see them covered in blood and to hear their death groans, makes people humble. It makes their spirits delicate, bright, peaceful. It's never at such times that we become cruel or bloodthirsty. No, it's on a beautiful spring afternoon like this that people suddenly become cruel. It's at a moment like this, don't you think, while one's vaguely watching the sun as it peeps through the leaves of the trees above a well-mown lawn? Every possible nightmare in the world, every possible nightmare in history, has come into being like this.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

“The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man.”
― Yukio Mishima, Thirst for Love

“But why are they so fond of me if I don't deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved me and I too had never loved anyone! Nothing of all this would have happened.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“We are not wounded so deeply when betrayed by the things we hope for as when betrayed by things we try our best to despise.
In such betrayal comes the dagger in the back.”
― Yukio Mishima, Thirst for Love