"All languages that derive from Latin form the word "compassion" by combining the prefix meaning "with" (com-) and the root meaning "suffering" (Late Latin, passio). In other languages, Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish, for instance - this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefix combined with the word that means "feeling".

In languages that derive from Latin, "compassion" means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, "pity", connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. "To take pity on a woman" means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves.

That is why the word "compassion" generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love."

She wants to have her notebooks so that the flimsy framework of events, as she has constructed them in her school notebook, will be provided with walls and become a house she can live in. Because if the tottering structure of her memories collapses like a clumsily pitched tent, all that Tamina will be left with is the present, that invisible point, that nothingness moving slowly toward death.

وقد انتهـى به المطـاف إلى الاطمئنان إلى أن فكرة الحب الذى يحل فجأة كالصاعقة يحرر المرأة دفعـة واحدة من كل كابح وحشمة، وبما أنّها عفيفة وبريئة، فأنها تسارع إلى منح نفسها للعشيق مثلما تفعل أى فتاة داعـرة، بل أكثر من ذلك، فالحب حرّر بداخلهـا ينبـوع إلهام على درجة من القوة بحيث أن سلوكهـا العفـوى يمكن أن يشبه سلـوك امرأة ذات باع طويل فى الفجــور ..
فعبقـرية الحـب قد تعوّض الخبرة فى رمشة عيـن ..