Derek Letsch

“One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.”
― Anais Nin