John T

“Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same. When alone he had a dreadful and distressing desire to call someone, but he knew beforehand that with others present it would be still worse.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

“That which issues from the heart alone,
Will bend the hearts of others to your own.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“[Tolstoy] does not necessarily get rid of [his angry] temperament by undergoing religious conversion, and indeed it is obvious that the illusion of having been reborn may allow one's native vices to flourish more freely than ever, though perhaps in subtler forms.”
― George Orwell

“There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel