“I am excessively slothful, and wonderfully industrious-by fits. There are epochs when any kind of mental exercise is torture, and when nothing yields me pleasure but the solitary communion with the 'mountains & the woods'-the 'altars' of Byron. I have thus rambled and dreamed away whole months, and awake, at last, to a sort of mania for composition. Then I scribble all day, and read all night, so long as the disease endures.” KindLongWholeLastsNightPleasureMonthsFitExerciseMountainDiseaseDepressionEndureWoodsAwakeTortureYieldSolitaryCompositionCommunionAll NightAltarsIndustriousManiaByronScribbles Book:The Portable Edgar Allan Poe Source: The Portable Edgar Allan Poe
“Unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasureits hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave forever.” PleasureForeverRightsEffectsTorturePoisonDisappointUnlawfulHollowness Author:Charlotte Bronte
“I have never, God or whatever knows, prostrated myself to be famous, but I would meander through all the sewers of the world, through all degradations and humiliations, in order to paint. I have to do this. Until the last drop every vision that exists in my being must be purged; then it will be a pleasure for me to be rid of this damned torture” KnowsWorldLastsOrderPleasureVisionPaintTortureHumiliationDegradationSewers Book:Max Beckmann Source: Max Beckmann
“If the knowledge of torture of others makes you sick, it is a case of sympathy... It can be argued that behaviour based on sympathy is in an important sense egoistic, for one is oneself pleased at others' pleasure and pained at others' pain, and the pursuit of one's own utility may thus be helped by sympathetic action.” IfsMayImportantActionPainReligionPleasureCasesMoralitySickOneselfPursuitTortureBehaviourUtilitySympatheticPain And Pleasure Book:Choice, Welfare and Measurement Source: Choice, Welfare and Measurement