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Book cover for Studies in Pessimism (Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer)
This explains the fact that we generally find pleasure to be not nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful.
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Charlotte Brontë
“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë
“I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

William Styron
“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

Charlotte Brontë
“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Mark Twain
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
Mark Twain

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