Anthony Hughes

“Never, never marry, my friend. Here’s my advice to you: don’t marry until you can tell yourself that you’ve done all you could, and until you’ve stopped loving the woman you’ve chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you’ll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you’re old and good for nothing…Otherwise all that’s good and lofty in you will be lost.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.”
― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

“This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace