William Demidow

“The human heart harbors two conflicting sentiments. Everyone of course sympathizes with people who suffer misfortunes. Yet when those people manage to overcome their misfortunes, we feel a certain disappointment. We may even feel (to overstate the case somewhat) a desire to plunge them back into those misfortunes. And before we know it, we come (if only passively) to harbor some degree of hostility toward them.”
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

“A man crushed by reality puts on a show of endurance. If that's beyond your comprehension, dear reader, then you and I will never understand each other. Life's a farce, so we might as well make it a good one. But real life is a realm that I may never reach. The best that I can hope for is to loiter in the memory of these four days, so steeped with empathy. Four days that count more than five or ten years of my life. Four days that count more than a lifetime.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Flowers of Buffoonery

“Yours

(now I'm even losing my name - it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
― St. Francis of Assisi