John P.

“But one reads the papers as one wants to with a bandage over one’s eyes without trying to understand the facts, listening to the soothing words of the editor as to the words of one’s mistress. We are beaten and happy because we believe ourselves unbeaten and victorious.”
― Marcel Proust, Time Regained [In Search of Lost Time vol. 7]

“For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.”
― Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine of Hippo: The City of God

“another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities--the reason which Job's case exemplifies:that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.”
― Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine of Hippo: The City of God

“The chief criticism that I should direct against the old sovereign is that a Seigneur of his rank, head of one of the most ancient and illustrious houses in Europe, should have allowed himself to be led by the nose by that little upstart of a country squire very intelligent for that matter but a pure parvenu like William of Hohenzollern.”
― Marcel Proust, Time Regained [In Search of Lost Time vol. 7]