To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.

And those whom once my song had cheered and gladdened, If still they live, rove through the world now saddened.

One must keep repeating the Truth.

If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.

But one must know where one stands, and where the others wish to go.

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and the steadfastness of your spirits. When you then take a deep breath and rise above the cares of this world and in an hour of leisure, you will surely win the proper frame of mind to face devoutly what is above us, with reverence, seeing in all events the manifestation of a higher guidance.