Sophia

“In essence, love raises the feeling of one being for another to such a pitch that the threatened loss of the beloved or the loss of his love is felt no less keenly than the threat of death. Hence love is based on a
desire to live in anguish in the presence of an object of such high worth that the heart cannot bear to contemplate losing it. The fever of the senses is not a desire to die. Nor is love the desire to lose but the desire to live in fear of possible loss, with the beloved holding the lover on the very threshold of a swoon. At that price alone can we feel the violence of rapture before the beloved.”
― Georges Bataille, Erotism: Death and Sensuality

“Most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.”
― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

“I felt that I was being ridiculous, and mortally injuring a kind man for ever in my madness—but what was friendship to me, what was my whole life compared with my impatience to feel the touch of your lips again, to hear you speak softly close to me? That is how I loved you. I loved you so much, and now that it is all over and done with I can tell you so. And I believe that if you summoned me from my deathbed I would suddenly find the strength in myself to get up and go with you.”
― Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories

“She was frightened of him - his manner was severely cold and aloof...I have never seen anymore more exquisitely calm, more self-assured or more imperious.”
― Ivan Turgenev, First Love