amal

“which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“I didn’t want any new clothes at all; because if I had to look ugly anyway, I wanted to at least be comfortable. I let the awful clothes affect even my posture, walked around with my back bowed, my shoulders drooping, my hands and arms all over the place. I was afraid of mirrors, because they showed an inescapable ugliness.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“Loss and gain are brothers twain.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Greatest Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy

“away again.’ ‘You are quite right,’ said the Chief. ‘We will make it over”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Greatest Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy