Vittorio Alfieri Quotations

Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence.

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

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.

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

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.

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

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

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

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

Joy surfeited turns to sorrow.

For 'tis impossible Hate to return with love.

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

A usurper always distrusts the whole world.

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

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.

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

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

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

Liars are always most disposed to swear.

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

First thoughts are not always the best.

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.

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

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

Necessity inspires the fatal thought.