Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Duke of
Palma & Prince of Lampedusa (1896-1957)
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” (p.31)
“The tricolour! Tricolour indeed! They fill their mouths with these words, the scamps. What does that ugly geometric sign, that aping of the French mean, compared to our white banner with its golden lily in the middle? What hope can those clashing colours bring ‘em?” (p.31)
“The wealth of centuries had been transmuted into ornament, luxury, pleasure; no more; the abolition of feudal rights had swept away duties as well as privileges; wealth, like an old wine, had let the dregs of greed, even of care, and prudence fall to the bottom of the barrel, leaving only verve and colour. (p.33)
“Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty.” (p.68)
“All this shouldn't last; but it will, always; the human ‘always’ of course, a century, two centuries… and after that it will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards and Lions; those who’ll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals and sheep, we’ll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.” (p.173)
“Rage is gentlemanly; complaint is not.” (p. 184)
“As always the thought of his own death calmed him as much as that of others disturbed him: was it perhaps because, when all was said and done, his own death would in the first place mean that of the whole world?” (p. 210)
* Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (Il gattopardo), translated from the Italian by Archibald Colquhoun, Collins and Harvill Press, 1960
