Sarah

“The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,           
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“There is, indeed, nothing more vexing than to be, for example, rich, of good family, of decent appearance, fairly well educated, not stupid, rather good-hearted even, and at the same time to possess no talent, no special quality, no eccentricity even, not a single idea of one's own, to be precisely "like everyone else."
One is rich, but not so rich as Rothschild; of a good family, but one which has never distinguished itself in any way; of decent appearance, but an appearance expressive of very little; well educated, but without knowing what to do with that education; one is intelligent, but without one's own ideas; one is good-hearted, but without greatness of soul, and so on and so forth. There are a great number of such people in the world, far more than it appears.”
― Dostoyevsky

“I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.”
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

“Resistance was often framed with the laguage of obedience”
― Ruth MacKay, The Limits of Royal Authority: Resistance and Obedience in Seventeenth-Century Castile