Alex

“We must at the outset sadly acknowledge that Mozart, despite his passionate nature, his susceptibility to all the delights of this life and to all that is within the highest reach of the human imagination, and notwithstanding all he had experienced, enjoyed and created in the short span allotted to him, had nevertheless all his life lacked a stable and untroubled feeling of inner contentment.
Without probing deeper than we need into the causes of this phenomenon, we may in the first instance perhaps find them simply in those habitual and apparently insuperable weaknesses which we so readily, and not without some reason, perceive as somehow necessarily associated with everything in him that we most admire.”
― Eduard Morike, Mozart's Journey to Prague

“Fidèle à cette charte de l’égoïsme, le monde prodigue ses rigueurs aux misères assez hardies pour venir affronter ses fêtes, pour chagriner ses plaisirs.”
― Balzac

“Parfois, ils se forçaient à l’espérance, ils cherchaient à reprendre les rêves brûlants d’autrefois, et ils demeuraient tout étonnés, en voyant que leur imagination était vide.”
― Zola, Thérèse Raquin

“Au fond une pensée unique les rongeait : ils s’irritaient contre leur crime, ils se désespéraient d’avoir à jamais troublé leur vie.”
― Zola, Thérèse Raquin