Denis

“Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Stories

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I think that the point is that people rarely understand that nothing is ever exactly what you think it will be.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Longest Ride

“Pentru că îmi place să-i privesc pe dinăuntru... Să-i văd gândind. Din ce fel de idei sunt făcute gândurile lor? Şi ce simt ei, atunci când se îndrăgostesc de mine? Adevăru-i că, dacă stai să te gândeşti bine, jocul e cam plictisitor, căci au nişte şiretlicuri copilăreşti, mereu aceleaşi.”
― Carmen Laforet, Nada