Time passes—that’s the trouble. The past grows, while the future shrinks. There are fewer and fewer chances to do something, and it becomes increasingly painful to think of what you didn’t manage to do.
(Haruki Murakami, "Dance Dance Dance")
...never despise anyone, because no one can know what someone may be tormented and suffering from with such passion.
(N. Leskov, "The Enchanted Wanderer")
Apparently, in order to discover a person’s innermost nature, one must seek it not in their ordinary behavior, but in those unforeseen actions they perform unexpectedly even for themselves; however inexplicable, and sometimes reprehensible, these actions may be, it is precisely in them that the genuine self is revealed.
(Roger Martin du Gard, "The Thibaults")
He can no longer live here like this, completely alone. But why, if beauty exists, does a person feel lonely? The answer is like some idiotic riddle: because he feels. The greater the beauty, the greater the loneliness, because beauty is founded on harmony, and harmony on unity.
(J. Galsworthy, "The Forsyte Saga")
However, it would be strange to demand clarity from people in times such as ours.
Though, unfortunately, these young men do not understand that sacrificing one’s life is perhaps the easiest of all sacrifices in many such cases, and that sacrificing, for example, five or six years of one’s vibrant youth to difficult, arduous study—to learning, if only to multiply tenfold one’s strength for serving the same truth and undertaking the same feat that one has chosen and resolved to accomplish—is, for many of them, almost entirely beyond their powers.
(F. Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov")
— How did it happen that you all know how to speak so charmingly! — said Alice, hoping that a compliment would improve Tiger Lily’s mood. — I have been in many gardens before, but in none of them could the flowers speak.
— Put your hand on the ground and try it, — said Tiger Lily. Then you will understand how it happened.
Alice felt the ground.
— It’s very hard, this ground, she said, — I don’t understand what that could have to do with it...
— In most gardens, — said Tiger Lily, — gardeners lay the earth far too softly, and the flowers therefore fall asleep.
Alice wondered whether she might manage to get closer to the Queen by walking in the opposite direction from her.
It worked splendidly. She had not been on the road for a minute when she came face to face with the Red Queen. Moreover, the entire hill she had been striving toward, and could never reach, suddenly lay open before her, as if on the palm of her hand.
(Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”)
“Sometimes, when a person finds themselves in a hopeless situation, they begin to perform miracles they never even dreamed of,” — Mr. Weasley.
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn to the light,” — Dumbledore.
“Everything we lose is bound to return to us, only not always in the way we expect,” — Luna.
(J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and ...”)
There is nothing without which one cannot do. A person never became happier simply by suddenly receiving the job, money, or love they desired. True, great happiness is connected with an unexpected event that far surpasses a person’s expectations. We behave like eternal Father Christmases. Those who ask for a toy railway get one. But those who ask for nothing may receive much more. Stop asking, and only then can you be satisfied.
(Bernard Werber, “The Empire of the Angels”)
The tendencies from past incarnations are of two kinds—pure and impure. Pure tendencies lead you toward liberation, while impure ones lead to various troubles. Without a doubt, you are not an inert mass but possess consciousness. Nothing except yourself compels you to act. Therefore, you are free to strengthen the pure tendencies rather than the impure ones. The impure tendencies should be gradually abandoned, and the mind should gradually turn away from them so as not to provoke a strong reaction. By supporting good tendencies through constant action, you strengthen them. Impure tendencies weaken when they are not used. Soon you will become absorbed in expressing good tendencies through pure actions. When in this way you overcome the influence of vicious tendencies, even the good ones must then be abandoned. Only then will you experience the highest truth in your consciousness.
— Yes, but you did nothing to stop them. Sleep, intuition, a lightning strike—perhaps that would have been enough...
That is precisely why your people have a god! To restrain them, teach them, and keep them from doing whatever they please...
— Sometimes I think that all human misfortunes arise from the lack of imagination among the apprentice gods who are supposed to help them.
(Bernard Werber, “We, the Gods”)
The fifth planet was very peculiar. It turned out to be the smallest of all. There was only enough room on it for a streetlamp and a lamplighter.
The Little Prince could not understand at all why, on a tiny planet lost in the sky, where there were neither houses nor inhabitants, a streetlamp and a lamplighter were needed. But he thought:
“Perhaps this man is absurd. But he is not as absurd as the king, the conceited man, the businessman, and the drunkard. There is at least some meaning in his work. When he lights his lamp—it is as if another star or flower is born. And when he extinguishes the lamp—it is as if the star or flower falls asleep. It is a beautiful occupation. It is genuinely useful, because it is beautiful.”
(Exupéry, “The Little Prince”)
A Warrior of Light is one who is capable of grasping the miracle of life and fighting to the very end for what he believes in. And although no one considers themselves a Warrior of Light, anyone can become one.
“I have come,” the voice continued. “I have come to you as a scholar to a scholar. I want you to listen to me. It will be for your benefit. For yours and for others’...
The old man had already overcome his initial agitation and began examining the stranger’s strange face. Yes, there was no doubt—the way he had appeared, the way he behaved, the way he spoke... It was him, him, the one whose name could not be uttered with impunity, it was him!
...Although the voice spoke in the clear Latin language of scholarship, the old man understood little. The stranger said that he had come to give his knowledge to the people of this planet, to wash the blood from their hands and remove hatred from their hearts, to dispel the darkness in their thoughts... “Yes, yes,” the old man nodded, but the words passed through him like a needle through water. So great was his terror, and so great was his delight at the thought that someone had come who could fulfill his most secret desires.
...The old man made up his mind. He cried out hoarsely:
“I want youth, for youth will give me what knowledge did not!”
(Václav Kaidoš, “The Experiment”)
Cruel is Providence, which gave us a thirst for knowledge but denied us the time to master it properly. We all die disappointed; this is the greatest lesson we must learn.
Whatever happens, let us train ourselves to remember that it is happening to the body and mind, but not to us. Let us grow accustomed to realizing that our essence, or foundation, always remains unchanged. Let us learn to be this essence. /Ilya Belyaev, “The Space of Consciousness”/
The physical body, however, is created for us by angelic hierarchies—they create matter itself... Thus the process of descent comes to an end; the process of ascent begins. The physical body may be taken on by the monad once or, again and again, many times. The etheric body, however, is created anew only if its bearer, having fallen under the law of retribution, was forced to make his way through the circles of great suffering. On the ascending path, the etheric body accompanies its bearer through all the worlds of Enlightenment, all the way to the abodes of enlightened humanity...
(Daniil Andreev, "The Rose of the World")
Sometimes there were moments like today, when she suddenly felt an unbearable emptiness—not even emptiness, but silence; not despair, but stillness, as though everything within her had come to a halt without any particular malfunction. Then she felt the desire to receive a brief joy from outside, the desire to be a detached observer of someone else’s work or greatness. Not to possess, but merely to surrender; not to act, but only to react; not to create, but to admire. Only then will I be able to continue existing, for happiness is fuel for the soul.
{Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand}
Yoga Vasistha 
/Ilya Belyaev, “The Space of Consciousness”/