There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. – Mr. Knightley

In the face of all his handicaps, Jurgis was obliged to make the price of a lodging, and of a drink every hour or two, under penalty of freezing to death.

Ritengo di essere capace di leggere un poco nell’animo delle persone che mi circondano. Forse non è così. Nelle mie giornate migliori ho l’impressione di scrutare in fondo all’animo altrui, anche se non sono poi...

Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl…there was a boy…there was a person who was in trouble. And this is what she did…and what he did…and how they learned to survive it....

Classics aren’t books that are read for pleasure. Classics are books that are imposed on unwilling students, books that are subjected to analyses of “levels of significance” and other blatt, books that are dead.

It was William who would climb out of his carriage unafraid and help a farmer drive a herd of cattle or sheep across a road when necessary.

The best way to get to know them is to wander right into the middle and get lost.

I’ve never met anyone as kind as you are, except me Mum, o’ course.” –Benjamin Trimmel to Lady Alexandra.

As they walked, it seemed almost every building had some similar contrivance as decoration, adorning the street in a cacophony of clangs, bangs and whirs. The street’s surroundings danced with steam and smoke, the scent...

No temas, mi amor; primero dejaré de existir antes de amarte.

LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of...

You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.

Realize your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and...

Upon the publication of Goethe’s epic drama, the Faustian legend had reached an almost unapproachable zenith. Although many failed to appreciate, or indeed, to understand this magnum opus in its entirety, from this point onward...

That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.

the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white.

Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.

To HelenI saw thee once-once only-years ago;I must not say how many-but not many.It was a july midnight; and from outA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,There...

Ignoring somebody’s mistakes in life from a powerful position makes you a saint, but the same act (whose intentiondoes not matter), if carried out from a weak position, will make you a coward or helpless.

Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.

. . . a statement that is repugnant to one’s beliefs can be as true as one that is pleasurable.