Great Throughts Treasury

"The word 'freedom' means for me not a point of departure but a genuine point of arrival. The point of departure is defined by the word 'order.' Freedom cannot exist without the concept of order."

"I came into the world either too early or too late at present, I am good for nothing."

"It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overleap them. "

"Italy is only a geographical expression. "

"Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set in extremes. "

"Stability is not immobility. "

"The men who make history have not time to write it."

"When France has a cold, all Europe sneezes. "

"I have never feared that the revolution would be engendered by the universities; but that at them a whole generation of revolutionaries must be formed, unless the evil is restrained, seems to me certain.... The greatest and consequently most urgent evil now is the press.... All journals, pamphlets, etc., in Germany must be under a censorship."

"Ten million ignorances do not constitute one knowledge."

"The obvious is always least understood."

"The events which cannot be prevented must be directed."

"In Europe democracy is a falsehood."

"Error has never approached my spirit."

"The English have more common sense than any other nation, and they are fools."

"This maxim, to preserve is to act, has always served me as a line of conduct, while those who should have backed me up were confusing the duty of preservation with inactivity."

"The present day has no value for me, except as the eve of to-morrow; it is always with to-morrow that my spirit wrestles."

"The word 'Italy' is a geographical expression, a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political significance the efforts of the revolutionary ideologues try to put on it, and which is full of dangers for the very existence of the states which make up the peninsula."