[Dawn] is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.

life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

The trees and shrubbery seemed well-groomed and social, like pleasant people.

All Southern women wished of their menfolk was simply to be 'like Paris handsome and like Hector brave'.

One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.