Phychical pain is more easily borne than physical; and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose the former.

All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it.

The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather- beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.

In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid

The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

The beauteous dragonfly's dancing By the waves of the rivulet glancing; She dances here and she dances there, The glimmering, glittering flutterer fair. Full many a beetle with loud applause Admires her dress of azure gauze, Admires her body's bright splendour, And also her figure so slender...