The famous Florentine elegance, which attracts tourists to the shops on Via Tornabuoni and Via della Vigna Nuova, is characterized by austerity of line, simplicity, economy of effect.

Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.

The fact is that gardening, more than most of our other activities except sometimes love-making, confronts us with the inexplicable.

In violence, we forget who we are

What's the use of falling in love if you both remain inertly as you were?

love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.

Once the state is looked upon as the source of rights, rather than their bound protector, freedom becomes conditional on the pleasure of the state.