#deli

I have an acute sense of delicacy. Naturally I am prejudiced in favour of virtue. ("The Accursed Cordonnier") ↗

— Bernard Capes

#virtue #nature

A purposeless virtue is a contradiction in terms. Virtue, like harmony, cannot exist alone; a virtue must lead to harmony between one creature and another. To be good for nothing is just that. If a virtue has been thought a virtue long enough, it must be assumed to have practical justification - though the very longevity that proves its practicality may obscure it. That seems to be what happened with the idea of fidelity... Our age could be characterized as a manifold experiment in faithlessness, and if it has as yet produced no effective understanding of the practicalities of faith, it has certainly produced massive evidence of the damage and disorder of its absence. (pg.115-116, "The Body and the Earth") ↗

— Wendell Berry

#fidelity #marriage #virtue #age

Fidelity is a living, breathing entity. On wobbly footing, it can wander, becoming something different entirely. ↗

— Kay Goodstadt

#brain-tumor #death #faith #food #gay

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect. ↗

— Marcus Aurelius

#honesty #self-respect #respect

You're mine, Angel," he murmured, brushing the words across my jawbone as I arched my neck higher, inviting him to kiss everywhere. "You have me forever. ↗

— Becca Fitzpatrick

#fidelity #patch-cipriano #words

Cheating and lying aren't struggles, they're reasons to break up. ↗

— Patti Callahan Henry

#infidelity #lying #relationships #struggles #relationships

I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year. ↗

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

#infidelity #relationships #seasons #summer #relationships

...it is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then. ↗

— Thomas Hardy

#ardor #fidelity #love #love

An immense body, encircling my delirium, a body made of wind and sunlight, crouching and stretching, encompassed the existence of the slightest human echo. ↗

— Joë Bousquet

#echo #surrealism #surreal

I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, making a spectacle of myself. I was. But nothing helped. I was possessed. The minute he walked into a room and smiled at me, I was a goner. ↗

— Erica Jong

#cheating #fidelity #cheating