Fool that I am," said he,"that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself".

It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.

You are perfectly right in objecting to them [modern art], for this one great fault - that they have not yet had time to become old.

My dear fellow " Said Albert, turning to Franz " here is an admirable adventure; we will fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses, and double-barreled shotguns. Luigi Vampa comes to take us, and we take him - we bring him back to Rome , and present him to him holiness the Pope, who asks how he can repay so great a service; Then we merely ask for a cariage and a pair of horses, and we will see the Carnival in the carriage , and doubtless the Roman people will crown us at the capitol , and proclaim us, like Curtius and the veiled Horatius, the preservers of there country."

Whilst Albert proposed this scheme, signor Pastrini's face assumed an expression impossible to describe.