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“Do you come from Heaven or rise from the abyss, Beauty?”
― Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil / Les Fleurs du Mal

“she did lie
In her pavillion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“Since she could not unravel the tangle, she must take care not to re-enter it.”
― E. M. Forster, Room with a View, A

“—But why is she weeping? She, the perfect beauty, Who could put at her feet the conquered human race, What secret malady gnaws at those sturdy flanks? —She is weeping, fool, because she has lived! And because she lives! But what she deplores Most, what makes her shudder down to her knees, Is that tomorrow, alas! she will still have to live! Tomorrow, after tomorrow, always!—like us!”
― Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil / Les Fleurs du Mal