VITTORIO ALFIERI QUOTES
Italian dramatist & poet (1749-1803)
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.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
The will of angry gods, an unknown force, are dragging me along, despite myself.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
Such return awaits thy passion as thy passion merits.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Rosmunda
The time for hope is gone, and come for fear.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
The talent of making friends is not equal to the talent of doing without them.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Fortune, until now kind to me, begins to wear a frowning face.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Merope
Alas, 'tis force alone that can compel to virtuous actions a degenerate people.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Timoleon
If ardent passions push not men on to lofty enterprise, calm wisdom never will accomplish it.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Timoleon
Where there are laws, innocence need not tremble.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Virginia
To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Rosmunda
Disgrace does not consist in the punishment, but in the crime.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Antigone
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.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical
For one to grasp, whatever be his object, sov'reign power ... is an act of perilous presumption.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Timoleon
I am here a stranger to all feasts but those of blood.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
First thoughts are not always the best.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Don Garzia
Joy, when it is excessive, overcomes as much as grief.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
That blood which thou hast spill'd, should join you closely in an eternal bond.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Rosmunda
A usurper always distrusts the whole world.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Polinice
Sometimes blood, for the sake of sparing it, is spilled.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Timoleon
Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Oreste