“Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices.”

On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results.

Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which diverent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.

The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises.

The state reserves the right to be the sole interpreter of the needs of society.

War is to man what maternity is to a woman

There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.

There is no masterpiece. The artist has failed. The task was superior to his capacities.

We deny your internationalism, because it is a luxury which only the upper classes can afford.

A century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State.

State ownership! It leads only to absurd and monstrous conclusions; state ownership means state monopoly, concentrated in the hands of one party and its adherents, and that state brings only ruin and bankruptcy to all.

The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. … They were elements of disorder and subversion.

People are tired of liberty. They have had a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer a chaste and austere virgin…. Today’s youth are moved by other slogans…Order, Hierarchy, Discipline.

We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.

The press of Italy is free, freer than the press of any other country, so long as it supports the regime.

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

For the Fascist, everything is the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian.

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

Nora: i have questions. Patch: i should have known you’ve only been keeping me around for answers. Nora: well, that and your kisses. Anyone ever tell you you’re an incredible kisser?

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.

Don’t make me regret this” i said, breathless. ” you haven’t regretted me once”. He kissed me, and i answered so hungrily i thought my lips would bruise. Patch&nora ( p. 180)

Indeed the measure of our intellectual maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our capacity to feel less and less satisfied with our answers to better problems.

What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat… where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.

One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.