“But, learn that although all men are for sale, they don’t sell themselves to all buyers.”
“Curiosity, however sharp, must wait on dignity.”
“Orsini did not wait for compliments. Reserve is best countered by reserve.”
“And all of this from what source? A wayside farm in the Polesine. It illustrates the adage that the deeper the dung, the richer the rose. Who remembers the dung when the rose has blossomed?”
“Your Excellence, it is not usually the obvious that is dangerous.”
“It’s what I’ve always said. To be alive is a reflection on one’s character.”
“He realized all at once that ambition and love might not make good bedfellows, that a choice between them might be necessary.”
“Speak again with Messer Simone and fish up what you can. Fair weather or foul, it’s the part of wisdom to be prepared.”
“As there can be no peace among individual men where there is no law, so there can be no peace among states who are subject to no law. Treaties are futile; our holy religion itself fails to secure peace. The curse of Italy—it may be of the world—is that cities and states acknowledge no law superior to themselves. For only where law is, there is peace.”
“Stress used to gnaw and saw away inside me like a tiny black hole. I learned that in spite of the stress, I could do everything I needed to do: study, make top grades, shop for the right clothes, and put on that perfect smile. Some days, I felt like Wonder Woman.
The only thing I couldn't do was eat.”
“A few hundred thousand years ago, in early human (or hominid) prehistory, growth was so slow that it took on the order of one million years for human productive capacity to increase sufficiently to sustain an additional one million individuals living at subsistence level. By 5000 BC, following the Agricultural Revolution, the rate of growth had increased to the point where the same amount of growth took just two centuries. Today, following the Industrial Revolution, the world economy grows on average by that amount every ninety minutes.”
“Love is the bridge that spans the world above and below, and keeps the wheel of life turning.”
“Don’t worry,” he grunted. “Breathing is overrated.” “It is,”
“So, how was work? You clearly missed me.”
I put my hands on my face in embarrassment and he just laughs a bit to himself.
“It was boring.” It’s the truth.
“No one to antagonize, huh?”
“I tried abusing some of the gentle folk in payroll but they got all teary.”
“The trick is to find that one person who can give it back as good as they can take it.” He takes out a pan and begins to fry the vegetables in a single, stingy drop of oil.
“Sonja Rutherford, probably. That scary lady in the mailroom that looks like an albino Morticia Addams.”
“Don’t line my replacement up too quick. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
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