MFatih55

“There is the great advantage they have over us," said Julien now alone in the garden. "The history of their ancestors raises them above vulgar ideas, and they do not have to think of a livelihood. It is terrible," he added, with bitterness; "I have no right to think of those great things. My life is only a series of hypocrisies because I have not a thousand francs.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“Personal distinction is the only passport to the society of the great. Whether this distinction arise from fortune, family, or talent, is immaterial; but certain it is, to enter into high society, a man must either have blood, a million, or a genius.”
― Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey

“In the past, Julien said to her, when I could have been so extraordinarily happy during our walks in the woods at Vergy, furious ambition transported my soul to imaginary realms. Instead of me pressing this lovely arm, which was so near to my lips, my heart, the future took me away from you; I was engaged with the innumerable struggles I would have to endure to amass a vast fortune...”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“I am to be released, if all goes well with me, towards the end of May, and hope to go at once to some little seaside village abroad with Robbie and More Adey. The sea, as Euripides says in one of his plays about Iphigenia, washes away the stains and wounds of the world.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis and Other Writings