Regina

“Y el orden no desaparecerá con el verdugo. No lo creáis. La bóveda de la sociedad futura no se desplomará por no contar con esa piedra angular. La civilización no es más que una serie de transformaciones sucesivas. ¿A qué váis a asistir? A la transformación de la penalidad. La dulce ley de Cristo penetrará por fin en el código y radiará sobre él. Se contemplará el crimen como una enfermedad, y esta enfermedad tendrá sus propios medicamentos, que reemplazrán a vuestros jueces, y sus propios hospitales, que reemplazarán a vuestras prisiones. La libertad y la salud se parecerán. Se verterá el bálsamo y el aceite allí donde se aplicaba el hierro y el fuego. Trataremos con caridad ese mal que se trataba con cólera. Será sencillo y sublime. La cruz sustituirá al patíbulo. Eso es todo.”
― Victor Hugo

“A lot of negative feelings could follow on from that: sadness, low self-esteem, anger at yourself and the other person, despair. People probably have lost their minds over less, and gone actually crazy from the misery. And yet, at the same time, it seems incredibly possible now, tantalisingly possible, that he might once again hear her voice murmuring his name in a low pleasurable satisfied tone while he makes love to her. And for this, he thinks, whatever: despair, heartbreak, even losing his mind and going insane later on, anything. Literally, anything, any price. Yeah, he says. I think it’s a good idea. I do.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar’s vile tongue be cut out!
Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!
No! The master was mistaken when with bitterness he told Ivanushka in the hospital, at that hour when the night was falling past midnight, that she had forgotten him. That could not be. She had, of course, not forgotten him.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“True, now and again, out of sheer bitterness, I let my tongue wag; but there is something else at the bottom of my heart that makes me, willy nilly, rejoice or grieve with other folk. Nay, one cannot live quite separated from all.”
― Władysław Stanisław Reymont, Chłopi