"The works of man are never so beautiful as when they are falling to decay; the works of God are most beautiful when they are young.

You might as well say that because wine improves with age, therefore horses do likewise.

The faculty of comparison is lacking in your mind, my dear Del Ferice, as it is generally lacking in the minds of true patriots.

Great reforms and great revolutions are generally brought about by people of fierce and desperate convictions, like yours, who go to extreme lengths, and never know when to stop.

The quintessence of an artist's talent is precisely that faculty of comparison, that gift of knowing when the thing he is doing corresponds as nearly as he can make it with the thing he has imagined." There was no tinge of sarcasm in Gouache's voice as he imputed to Del Ferice the savage enthusiasm of a revolutionist.