“It is Fate that I am here,” persisted George. “But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

It is the starved imagination, not the well nourished, that is afraid.

Ah, but you see, I didn't want to be fair.

Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.

Unless we remember we cannot understand.