Oto

“It need only be remembered that all pleasure is negative, and that pain is positive in its nature, in order to see that the passions can never be a source of happiness, and that age is not the less to be envied on the ground that many pleasures are denied it. For every sort of pleasure is never anything more than the quietive of some need or longing; and that pleasure should come to an end as soon as the need ceases, is no more a subject of complaint than that a man cannot go on eating after he has had his dinner, or fall asleep again after a good night's rest. So”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims

“the night of thought is the light of perception.”
― Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism

“Poetry is an attempt to penetrate the dense reality to find a place where the simplest things look as new as through the eyes of a child.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“Exaggeration in every sense is as essential to newspaper writing as it is to the writing of plays: for the point is to make as much as possible of every occurrence. So that all newspaper writers are, for the sake of their trade, alarmists: this is their way of making themselves interesting. What they really do, however, is resemble little dogs who, as soon as anything whatever moves, start up a loud barking. It is necessary, therefore, not to pay too much attention to their alarms, and to realize in general that the newspaper is a magnifying glass, and this only at best: for very often it is no more than a shadow-play on the wall.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms