Every fact is impure, but every fact contains in it the juices of life. Every fact is a clod, from which may grow an amaranth or a palm.
Everywhere the fatal spirit of imitation, of reference to European standards, penetrates and threatens to blight whatever of original growth might adorn the soil.
Some degree of expression is necessary for growth, but it should be little in proportion to the full life.
Not one man, in the million, shall I say? no, not in the hundred million, can rise above the belief that woman was made for man...
Give me truth; cheat me by no illusion.
The life of the soul is incalculable.
Life is richly worth living, with its continual revelations of mighty woe, yet infinite hope; and I take it to my breast.
How anyone can remain a Catholic – I mean who has ever been aroused to think, and is not biased by the partialities of childish years – after seeing Catholicism here in Italy I cannot conceive.
Pain has no effect but to steal some of my time.
Tragedy is always a mistake; and the loneliness of the deepest thinker, the widest lover, ceases to be pathetic to us so soon as the sun is high enough above the mountains.
The mind is not, I know, a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.
Beware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitation of thought and interest, its dullness of fancy, its too external life, and mental thinness.
As to marriage, I think the intercourse of heart and mind may be fully enjoyed without entering into this partnership of daily life.
Who can ever be alone for a moment in Italy? Every stone has a voice, every grain of dust seems instinct with spirit from the Past, every step recalls some line, some legend of long-neglected lore.
Union is only possible to those who are units. To be fit for relations in time, souls, whether of man or woman, must be able to do without them in the spirit.
While any one is base, none can be entirely free and noble.
Tremble not before the free man, but before the slave who has chains to break.
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.
When the intellect and affections are in harmony; when intellectual consciousness is calm and deep; inspiration will not be confounded with fancy.