“The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.”

“I know not, I know not where Danusia is but I challenged him, because, even if I were to lose my life, I prefer death to life without my love, without the one who is clearest to me in the whole world.”

— Henryk Sienkiewicz《The Knights of the Cross, or, Krzyzacy: Historical Romance》

“Love, in his case, had meant the idealisation of the whole of life--the life of action and the life within the soul.”

— John Oliver Hobbes《Robert Orange: Being a Continuation of the ...》

“The life we lead is all love: The love we hold is all death, Nor ought I crave to feed life, Nor ought I seek to shun death, But only that my goddess, My life my death do count hers.”

— Philip Sidney《The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia》

“To her, my thoughts I daily dedicate; To her, my heart I nightly martyrise; To her, my love I lowly do prostrate; To her, my life I wholly sacrifice: My thought, my heart, my life, my love, is she! &c.”

— Anna Brownell Jameson《The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2): or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.》

“You wish me to love you: this is the man whom I love, and whom I have sworn to love during my whole life: make the comparison yourself.”

— Antoine François Prévost《Manon Lescaut》

“Herein doth consist happiness of life, for a man to know thoroughly the true nature of everything; what is the matter, and what is the form of it: with all his heart and soul, ever to do that which is just, and to speak the truth.”

— Marcus Aurelius《Meditations》

“Life and death and love, stronger than death, will be as though they never had been.”

— Robert Cromie《The Crack of Doom》

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”

— Jane Austen《Pride and Prejudice》

“But when these sort of men are so unwelcome to others, as that the very sight of them is thought ominous, I yet make them highly in love with themselves, and fond admirers of their own happiness.”

— Erasmus《In Praise of Folly》

“I, unhappy that I am, these eight years have I loved thee more than my life, and thou, as I have felt, art all afire and all consumed with love of a strange woman, wicked and perverse man that thou art!”

— Giovanni Boccaccio《The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio》

“If one should dream that such a world began In some slow devil's heart, that hated man, Who should deny him?--God, as thou art clean, Suffer not this, oh, suffer not this sin To be, that e'er I look on such a day!”

— Sophocles《Oedipus King of Thebes: Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes》

“The whole panorama of the world's life before the historic period, seemed to be born over again, and mine was the only human heart that beat in this unpeopled world!”

— Jules Verne《A Journey to the Centre of the Earth》