All Quotes

"Il mio rammarico è che non si è voluto continuare a indagare, a studiare il nostro lavoro, ad andare fino in fondo, a leggere, a soppesare i 120 volumi degli atti della Commissione, che tutti potrebbero consultare, che si trovano nella biblioteca della Camera"

"The Constitution was her civil Gospel. The Constitution "born of the Resistance": she often quoted it and used it as a compass, as a point of reference when she had to make political decisions."

"Tina Anselmi is a very likeable woman. [...] She has a serious, frank and straightforward manner, down-to-earth, without insincere modesty or off-putting arrogance. She has a beautiful, ever-present smile and a lovely, clear complexion. She possesses that special phlegmatic serenity and human understanding towards everyone which are the qualities of a mediator by vocation."

"Kynge Henry beynge in Normādy, after some wryters fell from, or with his horse, whereof he caughte his deth: but Ranulphe sayth, he toke a surfet by etynge of a lāprey, & therof dyed...Than the kynges bowellys were drawen out of his body, & than salted with moche salte, & for to auoyde the stēche which had enfected many men, the body was lastly closed in a bulles skynne, & yet it was not all stynted. He yͭ clēsed the hed, dyed of the stench of the brayne. Than lastly the body was brought in to Englonde, & buryed in the abbey of Redynge, yͭ he had before foūded. Than the fame of hym was blowen abrode as it is blowen of other prynses, & sayd yͭ he passed other men in iii thynges, in wytte, in eloquence, & in fortune of bateyll; & other sayde he was ouercomen with iii vyces, with couetyse, wͭ crueltye, and with luste of lechery."

"The duke of Clarence and seconde brother to the kynge thanne beynge prysoner in the towre, was secretely put to deth and drowned in a barell of maluesye wythin the sayde towre."

"Fabyan's own merits are little more than those of an industrious compiler, who strung together the accounts of his different authorities without any critical capacity. He says expressly that his work was "gaderyd without understandynge," and speaks of himself as "of cunnynge full destitute." Nevertheless he deserves the praise which he has received as an early worker, and for having made public information which through Hall and Holinshed has become the common property of later historians, and has only recently been otherwise accessible."

"Li abbiamo fregati con l'emendamento Carrara. Siamo cresciuti e siamo diventati più furbi di loro."

"[Maria Falcone e Rita Borsellino] hanno offeso la memoria dei loro eroici fratelli. Le due signore, entrambi militanti a sinistra con una disinvoltura che preferisco non commentare, hanno strumentalizzato due eroi civili che, per fortuna di tutti, sono patrimonio della collettività."

"The Supreme Court’s ruling finally does justice to Mr Previti. It is just a pity that it has taken more than ten years. We are delighted for our friend Cesare Previti and hope that this case will help shed light on the conduct of those who, for purely political reasons, have over the years denied the plain facts and the law."

"Sarò il garante di tutti, il massimo garante delle regole."

"[The judiciary] appeals to me most when it engages in a direct and uncompromising fight against the Mafia to dismantle its territorial structure by uprooting its deep-seated, toxic roots. I like it less, however, when certain individual magistrates, following convoluted and nebulous lines of inquiry and relying on statements from state witnesses who speak from hearsay, tend to put forward political theories by conjuring up ghosts from a distant past that allegedly saw conspiracies against the proper functioning of institutions."

"We are in the final stages of a tax reform. The public is well aware that once it is enacted, there will be no room for clemency."

"Craxi was a man who knew how to make decisions and with his government – remarkable in itself for its longevity, from 1983 to 1987 – he restored the central role and authority of Palazzo Chigi."

"The passage of time allows us to view the past with greater clarity and objectivity. It is up to each of us to reflect on Craxi and that dramatic period. He was shown no leniency; he paid more than anyone else for the failings of the entire political system of the time. He was a scapegoat."

"(About Cosa Nostra) We are all defeating it, but above all the Sicilians. Consciences and attitudes have changed. Before, there was fear and the code of silence; even obvious facts were denied, and the facts themselves were simply ignored. Of course, we had to pay a huge price with the deaths of people like Judges Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone. But all this has changed the conscience of the Sicilians."

"There is nothing worse than trivialisation and generalisation, which, unfortunately, Roberto Vecchioni has fallen into. From such a highly regarded singer-songwriter, we would have expected more profound and less stereotypical assessments, not least given the venue where he delivered his speech."

"Ho messo a fuoco i miei ricordi su Schifani e ne ho parlato ai magistrati perché già prima dell'attentato all'Olimpico sapevo che c'era una trattativa Stato-mafia. Quando ho visto Schifani in televisione e con incarichi politici, mi è venuto in mente che frequentava spesso il capannone di Brancaccio a Palermo dove Filippo Graviano si fermava a fare incontri. Ed ho ipotizzato che Schifani poteva essere l'anello di congiunzione per la trattativa."

"Apologising for the intrusion, and without wishing to spoil this fine atmosphere of bipartisan deference towards the new President of the Senate, Renato Schifani, we would like to offer a few biographical notes on the well-known statesman from Palermo who now presides where De Nicola, Paratore, Merzagora, Fanfani, Malagodi and Spadolini once sat. He is not a namesake of the man who insulted Rita Borsellino and Maria Falcone ("they make political use of their surname", sic) because they had protested when Berlusconi described magistrates as “mentally disturbed, anthropologically alien to the rest of the human race”: it is indeed him. He is not a namesake of the author of the unconstitutional ruling which, in 2003, granted impunity to the five highest offices of state, particularly one of them—namely Berlusconi—and verbally attacked Scalfaro in the Senate because he dared to dissent: it is still him."

"It is clear that if the political climate leads, shall we say, to a thaw in relations between the opposition and the new majority, Schifani has had friendships with mafia figures... I do not write that Schifani has had friendships with mafia figures because neither the right nor the left wants it, and what do I have to do with the right or the left? Let them take whatever political stance they wish, but I have to be a journalist. I have to report it; Lirio Abbate reported it in the book he wrote with Gomez, and he is rightly celebrated as a heroic journalist threatened by the Mafia. So, either they have the courage to say that Lirio Abbate is a scoundrel, a liar, or they have the courage to take note of what he writes about the second-highest office in the state, and simply ask the second-highest office in the state to explain those relationships with those gentlemen who were subsequently convicted of mafia involvement; instead, we, unfortunately, are simply following the political climate. If there were a clash, some would say: ‘Oh well, it suits the left, so I’ll write it.’ Today, when not even the left wants to hear about certain things, nobody talks about them anymore: it’s a tragedy."

"It is very instructive when the highest offices of state are filled, because the newspapers publish all the names of the figures who have held that office in the history of the Republic, and one realises – because it slips our minds when we see certain faces – that we once had De Gasperi, Einaudi, De Nicola, Merzagora, Parri, Pertini, Nenni... I don’t know, we could make a long list – Fanfani – I mean, you see the whole line-up, then you arrive and see Schifani. There’s an element of originality: the second-highest office in the state, Schifani. [...]"

"Security is still precarious. The first thing we really need to do is ensure that people can return safely to resume their lives with confidence. But I think we still need time. If people return, we will also consider the possibility that missionaries will return. But for us, the thermometer will be to understand the degree of real security."

"Insecurity prevails, the internally displaced are still many. I personally ask you, those who know me, to pray. Pray for me, and pray for peace. As a church, we can only humanely help those forced to move from one place to another. The security issue is in the hands of the government and international partners."

"All the thought which in the course of my studies I have been able to give to the subject has led me to conclude that the ideal in Art is but the impressions made upon the mind of the artist by the beautiful or Art subjects in external nature, and that our Art power is the ability to receive and retain these impressions so clearly and distinctly as to be able to duplicate them upon canvas. So far from these impressions thus engraved upon our memory being superior to nature, they are but the creatures of nature and depend upon her for existence as fully as the image in a mirror depends upon that which is before it."

"The poet of England, he gave to the love of country, to patriotism as nowadays we call it, a voice which never shall be stilled. His histories are, and will ever be, the epic of our race."

"It is in Henry V. that Shakespeare fashioned for us the true epic of England. The dramatic form sits very loosely upon it. It is epic in shape as in spirit. Splendid in eloquence, swift in narrative, it is a pæan sung in our country's praise. Its noble lines sound in our ears like a trumpet-call, and it has lost not a jot of its force and energy by the passage of three hundred years."

"For Shakespeare, as I have said, was above and before all things a lover of England. With how bitter a contempt would he have lashed those friends of every country but their own, who nowadays unpack what they have of souls to strangers, and believe that flat treason is a mark of superiority! And Shakespeare, being a patriot, was a Tory also. He loved not those who disturbed the peace of England. He believed firmly in the established order, and in the great traditions of his native land. He was a firm supporter of Church and State."

"Again Shakespeare proves himself a gentleman in his moderation. He does not insist. He harbours no inapposite desire to make us better. Some of his critics have been saddened by the thought that his plays solve no moral problems and preach no obvious sermons—that, in fact, he is content to be a mere master of the revels, a purveyor of joy and pleasure. His refusal to preach is but another title of honour."

"How far is patriotism necessary to the equipment of a statesman? Now patriotism, out of fashion though it be to-day, should be the first and plainest of the virtues. It is but an extension of the feeling for family, which is the foundation of all society. A man who insults his father and despises his mother is a bad son. He is a bad citizen, who despises and insults his country. And a bad citizen, though he has every right to exist, is not likely to prove the wisest ruler."

"Genius transcends the common rules of life and blood."

"Like most Radicals, he [Richard Cobden] lived in a fool's paradise where facts are of no account, and where, if principles prove fallacious, it is not the fault of the optimist who frames them, but of some vile conspirator against the common good."

"The political game, as it is played in England, bears this resemblance to the game of fives, that you must get your adversary out before you may begin to score yourself."

"Genius transcends the boundaries and frontiers of race, and makes its happy possessor an understanding citizen in whatever state he inhabits."

"He gives always the impression of fearless sincerity, and that is more important than being always right. One always feels that he is ready to say bluntly what every one else is afraid to say. Thus a feeling of apprehensiveness, conducive to attention, is aroused in the reader. And, in fact, he was, when he chose to be, a master of invective."

"The “Musings Without Method” which Whibley contributed once a month to Blackwood's for thirty years, excepting two months, one of which was the last, are the best sustained piece of literary journalism that I know in recent times."

"A bare record of his work can give but little idea of Whibley's place in the estimation of his contemporaries, which is attributable at least as much to the effect of his personality on those who came into contact with him as to his literary eminence. The warmth of his human sympathies, his brilliant wit, his love of good cheer, of good talk, and of all that was vital and sincere made him the best of companions. He had his prejudices, to which he would sometimes give alarming expression; but his impeccable intellectual honesty and the courageous vigour of mind and spirit which shone out in his conversation made him an acknowledged leader among his intimates. In this, as in some of his other qualities, including his unbending toryism, he resembled Dr. Johnson; and it may well be that like Johnson he will rather live through the influence which he exerted on those who were privileged to know him than through the written word. Nevertheless, he was a great master of the written word. He maintained throughout his life the loftiest standards of his craft: his literary style was in the highest degree chaste and austere. His most ephemeral work—and much of it was ephemeral—was always that of a scholar; and although as a writer he was critical rather than constructive, he was a power in his time."

"He was intolerant of fools and humbugs, and did not conceal his opinions; he had a real hatred of whiggery and indeed of liberalism in any form; and his unmeasured denunciation of all that he considered vulgar and insincere doubtless made him enemies. But he was fond of the society of his intellectual equals, whether at University dining societies or the Beefsteak Club, and his death removes a forceful and forthright character from the English literary world. Both he and his opinions would perhaps have been more at home in London somewhere between the Restoration and the French Revolution; but we may be glad that there was at least one of his sort among us in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

"Car mieills m'avetz ses doptanssa, Qe·l Vieills l'Asasina gen, Qu'il vant, neis s'eron part Franssa, Tant li son obedien, Aucir sos gerriers mortals."

"Si eu en soy desmentitz C'aysso no sia veritatz No n'er om per mi blasmatz Si per ver m'o contreditz; Ans vey sos sabers plus grans Si·m pot venser d'ayso segons rayso Qu'eu non say ges tot lo sen Salamo."

"Lady, for you great torment must I bear. Sir, you are foolish, for I do not care. Lady, for heaven's sake to me be kind. Sir, quite in vain your empty prayers you'll find. Good lady, I do love you faithfully. Good sir, and I dislike you utterly. Lady, my heart is therefore in distress. Sir, mine is ever light with happiness.Lady, all comfortless, I die for you. Sir, 'tis a task it takes you long to do. Lady, to live is worse than to bave died. Sir, since it harms me not, I'm satisfied. Lady, by you I am discouraged merely. Sir, do you therefore think I love you dearly? Lady, one glance my saving could effect. Sir, hope or comfort you need not expect.Lady, I go elsewhere to beg for grace. Sir, go! for who retains you in this place? Lady, for love of you I cannot go. 'Tis no affair of mine, sir, as you know. Lady, you answer me so harshly still. Sir, 'tis because I wish you every ill. Then, lady, I shall never see you kind? Sir, as you say: at last you know my mind."

"Love, you have cast me where I have no heed. For heaven's sake, my friend, do what you need. Love, you reward at last for every wound. Friend, I will therefore make you safe and sound. Love, why compel the choice of such a one? Friend, I will show you what had best be done. Love, I can't bear the pain that rends my heart. Friend, I will choose another for your part.Love, all you do I see is of no use. Friend, you do wrong to utter such abuse. Love, must I part from her? Then tell me why. Friend, 'tis because I grieve to see you die. Love, do not think my heart from her to lure. Friend, then resolve in patience to endure. Love, may I hope my happiness to gain? Friend, yes at last, through service and through pain."

"Good lady, I from you and Love receive Sense, knowledge, vigor, heart, good words and song; To you and Love the thanks and praise belong If anything of worth I may achieve, For you have given me this mastery."

"We are told that one great lord was so highly pleased with the first song of Aimeric de Pegulhan that he gave him his own palfrey and the very clothes he wore."

"In the ancient land of vintage and dance and sun-burnt mirth, there resounded during the Middle Ages a sweet chorus of song, which was the delight, not only of the native lords and ladies, but of cultivated society in all neighboring countries. Spreading to France, Spain, Germany and Italy, its underlying ideas and fancies furnished the basis of much that is greatest in medieval literature. Its sudden appearance, its rapid development, its brief glory, and its untimely extinction, invest this lyric outburst with a special, almost tragic, interest."

"The poetry of the troubadours was essentially social in character. Unlike Goethe's minstrel, who sang as the bird among the branches, these bards exercised their art for the sake of applause and gain,—a recompense which could be won only by pleasing the knights and ladies gathered at the court of some wealthy and noble patron. Of the three classes into which feudal society was divided—commons, clergy and nobles—the last alone possessed either the means or the desire to reward literary and musical skill. It was to this class, therefore, to the Counts of Provence and Toulouse, to Eleanore of Aquitaine and Ermengarde of Narbonne, to Richard the Lionhearted and Alfonso of Aragon, that the Provençal lyric was addressed."

"In the eleventh century the nobility, which had previously been terribly rough and barbarous, began to grow more refined. Under the influence of favorable conditions, chivalry was developed. Particularly in the south of France, where wealth had long accumulated and where, through rights, taxes and the sale of privileges, it flowed largely into the hands of the great lords, the delight in life became conspicuous. Prodigality was the fashion. As in the Elizabethan age in England, the love of splendor manifested itself particularly in gorgeousness of dress and magnificence of entertainments. A host of attendants accompanied the man of rank, and the ideal prince bestowed gifts lavishly and without thought upon knights, squires, and, above all, upon jongleurs.These jongleurs—the successors of the Latin Mimi—supplied entertainment to the commons at the fairs and to the higher classes at their feasts. The meaner kind not only recited, sang and played on musical instruments, but performed as jugglers, dancers, acrobats and exhibitors of trained animals. But the courtly singers were not of this order. Though mostly professional minstrels, they were not infrequently the friends and companions of princes. When they wandered from castle to castle, they were honorably received; when they attached themselves to some particular patron, they were caressed and richly paid. We are told that one great lord was so highly pleased with the first song of Aimeric de Pegulhan that he gave him his own palfrey and the very clothes he wore."

"Illiterate and yet cultivated, these lords and ladies demanded of their poets a strict adherence to generally recognized conventional forms, and, at the same time, an elaboration of artificial conceits and an originality of metrical complication, which gave pleasure in the feeling of difficulties overcome.The conventionalism, both in ideas and in forms, must be obvious to every reader. Instead of the description of nature, we find vague references to green meadows, fragrant flowers, and singing birds. It is the same with the expression of love. The griefs and joys of the lover, his hopes and cares, are set forth in general terms. The detail that would give life to the picture is conspicuously absent. Even in the most personal songs of affection, sorrow or hatred, there is the same indefiniteness of image. A fund of materials was accumulated from which all could draw. The chief demand upon the poet was that these materials should be perpetually rearranged in slightly varied combinations."

"Just as the ideas settled into a system, so the free forms of popular poetry also hardened into categories, so that later writers were enabled to set down a code of almost absolute laws. Even very early care for form became excessive. As a general rule, the rhymes of every stanza throughout a poem are identical; there was an effort to devise new kinds of poetry; complicated rhyming schemes were invented; to these were added word-play, alliteration and forced constructions; difficulties of every kind were sought. Some poets even boasted it as a merit that they could not be understood.This artificiality and elaboration seem strange when we remember that neither the poets nor their audiences were really educated people. Some few authors, it is true, possessed a slight acquaintance with the Classics,—enough to make an occasional allusion to Ovid,—but there were many who could not even read their native tongue. These, of course, transmitted their songs orally to the jongleur, who preserved both words and music in his memory."

"A jongleur was one who, either as author or performer, made poetry and music a profession. The name troubadour, on the other hand, was reserved for him who composed, whether for money or merely for pleasure. It is among the troubadours, therefore, that we find the greatest variety of personages. Some were peasants or townsmen, some poor knights, some unfrocked priests or monks. Such made a living by song. Their rivals in fame, though not in pecuniary reward, included powerful barons, princes, and even kings. Music and verse, it must be remembered, were inseparable, and the author was almost invariably the composer as well. Those who could sing, moreover, produced their own compositions to the accompaniment of the fiddle or the harp; others employed professional singers, who frequently carried the song to a distant patron or friend."

"There was the vers, a simple, early form, which developed into the canso. This was an elaborate poem, of from five to seven stanzas, dealing always with the subject of love, and requiring a melody of its own. On the other hand, from the sirventesc love was properly excluded, and it was written to fit some well-known and popular air. The subject was moral or religious, political or personal. In the planh the poet lamented the death of his patron, or his lady-love. A most curious form was the tenso, a play of wit, in which, usually with great personal bitterness, two poets debated, in alternate stanzas, such questions as: Which are the greater, the benefits or the ills of love? Which contribute most to keep a lover faithful, the eyes or the heart? Which loves the more deeply, one who can not keep from speaking to everyone of his lady, or one who does not speak of her at all, but thinks of her night and day?Such questions of love causistry are thoroughly characteristic of the social element in the troubadour poetry. They are questions of which the knights and ladies seemed never weary."

"The brilliant and worldly society, before whom the Provençal lyric was sung, lived under the domination of the ideals of chivalry, ideals which demanded that men should fight and that men should love. The poetry that would please this society must, therefore, bear the stamp of these same ideals and subject itself to the tyranny of the same narrow circle of thought. Religion could mostly be left to the close of life, except as it stirred warriors to battle for the Holy Sepulchre. The vast range of emotion open to a Burns, a Heine, a Hugo, lay in an untrodden, if not undreamed, region. The courtly singers, be their birth royal, noble or base, treat, with hardly an exception, of two subjects, and two subjects alone—of war and of love.The love, indeed, was of that peculiar sort termed lady-service. The object of affection was almost invariably a married woman of high rank, to whom the poet addressed his homage and his humble supplications. How much of real passion and how much of simulated adoration this relationship represented, it is impossible to discover. It is reasonable to believe, however, that, in general, the limits of propriety were strictly observed.Without doubt the burning phrases of the earliest troubadours expressed their true sentiments, and we can hardly believe that even the later poets were always confined to emotions purely Platonic. Yet, on the whole, the exaggerated anguish and the equally exaggerated joy, the unlimited praises, the assurances of absolute devotion and unchangeableness, the wishes, the hopes, the despairs of these lovers must be interpreted as we interpret the same sort of language addressed by needy suppliants to Queen Elizabeth of England.In Provence, rich heiresses married young, and after marriage they enjoyed much liberty. Becoming social queens, they patronized the poor singers, who in turn gratified their ladyships' vanity by prolonging and spreading the fame of their beauty. These singers, while professing love, professed also the deepest humility, a humility most strongly marked in those of much lower birth than the ladies they addressed. Every one of them proclaimed himself his lady's vassal, until this convention became so firmly established that even a king (Alfonso II) sang: "Her man, warranted and sworn, shall I now be, if it please her, before all other lords.""