For a great nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious training; religion of character is so apt to be invaded.

Four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for no purpose that I could see - not to eat, not for love, but only gliding.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Great men do not content us. It is their solitude, not their force, that makes them conspicuous.

If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.

There comes a period of the imagination to each--a later youth--the power of beauty, the power of looks, of poetry.

The Italians are fond of red clothes, peacock plumes, and embroidery; and I remember one rainy morning in the city of Palermo, the street was ablaze with scarlet umbrellas.