Michael Dennis

“If you're thinking of courting men in high office, it's a sure road to eternal damnation. You'll be able to make your fortune, but you'll have to trample on the poor and wretched, flatter the sub-prefect, the mayor -- anyone held in esteem -- and serve their passions. Such conduct, which is known in society as worldly wisdom, need not for a layman be totally incompatible with salvation; but with our calling, we have to choose; you either make your fortune in this world or the next, there's no half-way house. So think about it, my dear fellow, and come back to me in three days' time with your final answer. I dimly perceive in the depths of your character a smouldering ardour which doesn't signal the sort of moderation and complete renunciation of worldly advantages that are essential in a priest. I predict great things of your intellect; but if you'll allow me to say so,' the kindly priest added with tears in his eyes, 'I shall fear for your salvation if you go into the priesthood.”
― Stendahl, The Red and the Black

“Men shut their doors against a setting sun.”
― William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

“Oh, how I wish -- and here Jane astonished herself with the vehemence of her own feelings -- how I wish that once, just once in my life, I could see Emma Woodhouse receive a real set-down!”
― Joan Aiken, Jane Fairfax

“She would have been noted for her spontaneity and liveliness of mind if she had been given any kind of education.... Mme de Renal had had enough sense to reject as absurd everything she had learnt at the convent, and to forget it pretty rapidly; but she did not replace it with anything, and ended up totally ignorant.”
― Stendahl, The Red and the Black