Elena

“Same-sex contact between men was part of the fabric of everyday life. But to raise a hue and cry about such contact was also a weapon in the arsenal of the slanderer, the fabulist and the blackmailer.”
― Will Tosh, Male Friendship and Testimonies of Love in Shakespeare's England

“No outsider was allowed to glimpse the mansion when Elisabeth was in residence. She could go walking for hours, observing the deer (she always carried wooden rattles with her to protect her from wild boars, who were afraid of the noise) or composing poems.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves