Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.
Hence it happened that all the armed prophets conquered, all the unarmed perished. [It. , Di qui nacque che tutti li profeti armati vincero, e li disarmati rovinarono. ]
For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.
Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
There's only one thing worse than a man who doesn't have strong likes and dislikes, and that's a man who has strong likes and dislikes without the courage to voice them.
I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.
I've filled my whole life trying to preserve the memory of living, in the fight against dying. Perhaps the only thing I've done, since stopping death is impossible, is to show this fight. The fight itself does not satisfy us either.
I want to bring excitement back to the heavyweight division.