Abigail

“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.”
― W.B. Yeats

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
― Plato, The Republic

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky