Елена Щрегарска

“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Everything had changed suddenly--the tone, the moral climate; you didn't know what to think, whom to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk by yourself. There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgment you respected. At such a time you felt the need of committing yourself to something absolute--life or truth or beauty--of being ruled by it in place of the man-made rules that had been discarded. You needed to surrender to some such ultimate purpose more fully, more unreservedly than you had ever done in the old familiar, peaceful days, in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good.”
― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

“Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I'm tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and I.”
― Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses

“I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said 'I want to be let alone!' There is all the difference.”
― Greta Garbo, Garbo