
“Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.”
The Weight of Glory (1949)
La verecondia delle donzelle è come l’acquavite. È perfetta sine a tanto che si tiene ben chiusa, ma se prende l’aria, vela subito via.
Olivo e Pasquale, Act I., Sc. VII. — (Pasquale.). Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 349.
La verecondia delle donzelle è come l’acquavite. È perfetta sine a tanto che si tiene ben chiusa, ma se prende l’aria, vela subito via.
“Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.”
The Weight of Glory (1949)
As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson, p. 211
“Harry: Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning.”
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The human creature represents the most perfect thinking and acting machine yet evolved on this earth, developing through countless ages in strict harmony with the surrounding conditions of temperature, atmosphere, light, and gravitation. The profound modifications in the human frame, which any important alteration in either of these factors would occasion, are strangely unconsidered. It is true there have been questionings as to the effects that might be occasioned by changes in temperature and atmospheric composition, but possible variations in gravitation seem almost to have escaped notice. The human body, which long experience and habit have taught us to consider in its highest development as the perfection of beauty and grace — "formed in the image of God " — is entirely conditioned by the strength of gravitation on this globe. So far as has been possible to ascertain, the intensity of gravity has not varied appreciably within those geologic ages covering the existence of animated thinking beings.
“Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long.”
Source: The Sound and the Fury