Laura Līva

“What do you fear, lady?’ he asked. ‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Human life—that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one’s face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature. And yet what a great reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional colored life of the intellect—to observe where they met, and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at discord—there was a delight in that!”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Men waste fortunes to climb a single mountain, Royce. It may be hard to understand, but sometimes the act itself is the reward. I would even go so far as to say that it is the best compensation. For after spending whatever money your work provides, you have nothing to show. But the man who finds satisfaction in the achievement, he will keep his treasure forever. No one can take it away – no thief can steal a memory or erase an accomplishment. And the dividends are more than the means to procure food. They are the building blocks of self-confidence, courage, respect, even admiration. I'd be wary of that last one though, as it is a bit too much like wine.”
― Michael J. Sullivan, Drumindor

“Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be colored by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray