adelaols

“I like hearing myself talk.  It is one of my greatest pleasures.  I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“They had been talking about his friend Z. when she announced, "If I hadn't met you, I'd certainly have fallen in love with him."
Even then, her words had left Tomas in a strange state of melancholy, and now he realized it was only a matter of chance that Tereza loved him and not his friend Z. Apart from her consummated love for Tomas, there were, in the realm of pos­sibility, an infinite number of unconsummated loves for other men.
We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspir­ing, is playing the "Es muss sein!" to our own great love.
Tomas often thought of Tereza's remark about his friend Z. and came to the conclusion that the love story of his life exemplified not "Es muss sein!" (It must be so), but rather "Es konnte auch anders sein" (It could just as well be otherwise).”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Of all the judgements we pass, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves.”
― Nathaniel Branden, How to Raise Your Self-Esteem: The Proven Action-Oriented Approach to Greater Self-Respect and Self-Confidence