Checkov

The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must have sounded when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are all no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. Sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellbound in these magical surroundings - the sea, mountains, clouds, the open sky -Gurov thought how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence. Chekov, The Lady with the Toy Dog

The flame in your soul, at the centre of your being,
Is larger and stronger than any government or king. Dean_Saor

The lamb, brought for the sacrifice,
ate the green leaf of the decorations,
wanting only to fill its stomach.
But, tell me, did the killers survive,
oh lord of the meeting rivers?

Basavanna, Speaking of Shiva, Penguin Books