Vittorio Alfieri Quotes

Disgrace does not consist in the punishment, but in the crime.

Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence.

Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.

To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked.

Necessity inspires the fatal thought.

Liars are always most disposed to swear.

First thoughts are not always the best.

A usurper always distrusts the whole world.

Ofttimes the test of courage becomes rather to live than to die.

If ardent passions push not men on to lofty enterprise, calm wisdom never will accomplish it.

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.

The guilty is he who meditates a crime; the punishment is his who lays the plot.

I had seen the great, but I had not seen the small.

There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do; there are movements that are involuntary proofs of what the soul feels.

Where there are laws, he who has not broken them need not tremble.

For 'tis impossible Hate to return with love.

A conquering king will banish from his breast hatred towards one whom he no longer fears.

Thou knowest not the endless artifices of a court. Invented crimes are often there alleged; but real ones, and those especially, which may offend his pride, are oftentimes not to a king divulged.

Joy, when it is excessive, overcomes as much as grief.

That blood which thou hast spill'd, should join you closely in an eternal bond.

Joy surfeited turns to sorrow.

The time for hope is gone, and come for fear.

Sometimes blood, for the sake of sparing it, is spilled.

The talent of making friends is not equal to the talent of doing without them.

For one to grasp, whatever be his object, sov'reign power ... is an act of perilous presumption.

Original thoughts can be understood only in virtue of the unoriginal elements which they contain.

Alas, 'tis force alone that can compel to virtuous actions a degenerate people.