“Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.”

Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.

Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

The mind is always the patsy of the heart.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.

If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.

Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

When a man is in love, he doubts, very often, what he most firmly believes.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can’t quite name.

The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.

It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.

Some pain shouldn’t be wished away so easily. It has to be dealt with, even embraced.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; – poetry = the best words in the best order.

If you wish to see the thousand years, look at today; if you wish to understand the millionfold, then look at the one or the two.

You wanted to look at life for yourself – but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

“What if I’m tired when I get home? What if I don’t fill my days with frenetic activity?” “But one day you might wish you had.”

Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power.