Lidik

“The wind was bitterly cold, but while he pulled the first rope toward the pulley Shinji stared out over the dark-indigo sea and felt boiling up within him energy for the toil that would soon have him sweating. The pulley began to turn and heavy, wet rope came rising from the sea. Through his thin gloves Shinji could feel the thick, icy rope he grasped in his hands. As it passed over the pulley the taut rope threw off a sleet-like spray of salt water.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Sound of Waves

“He put up with the pain, no matter how bad it got, knowing that it was inevitable, a necessary passage on the way to where he was going. Without passing this test, he would never be able to go out and run as he wanted.”
― Lao She, Rickshaw Boy

“Who'd have thought our tracks
would cross again like this?
where's the time got to?
and why is life
so full of goodbyes?

as we part in the yard
roosters are crowing in the trees
and we cry a little
drunk and happy
tears threading our cheeks.”
― David Young, Five T'Ang Poets

“Now, what is the quality to look out for as a warrant for the stability and permanence of friendship? It is loyalty. Nothing that lacks this can be stable. We should also in making our selection look out for simplicity, a social disposition, and a sympathetic nature, moved by what moves us. These all contribute to maintain loyalty. You can never trust a character which is intricate and tortuous. Nor, indeed, is it possible for one to be trustworthy and firm who is unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects ourselves. We may add, that he must neither take pleasure in bringing accusations against us himself, nor believe them when they are brought. All these contribute to form that constancy which I have been endeavouring to describe. And the result is, what I started by saying, that friendship is only possible between good men.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age