Preston

“Distance, my friend, is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls: the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision; and we desire earnestly to surrender up our whole being, that it may be filled with the complete and perfect bliss of one glorious emotion. But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant there becomes the present here, all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I got up every day thinking the sun was out there shining, and it could just as well shine on me as any other human person.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“Believe me, if you beheld on lips with grief one smile of joy and gratitude, and knew that you were parent of that smile and that without you it had never been, you would feel so pure and warm a happiness that you'd wish to live forever again and again to enjoy the same pleasure.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Mathilda

“Personally I take more satisfaction in understanding people than in passing judgement on them.”
― Stefan Zweig, Chess Story