Quotes

You may doubt I found comfort in England, But, there, 'tis a refuge from dangers! Where a Cromwell dictated to Milton, Republicans ne'er can be strangers!

Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.

The hand of God creates; it does not conceal.

The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.

"He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal."

"That man is … odd," I dared say to William.

Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...

A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.

There are magic moments, involving great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement, that produce visions of people known in the past. As I learned later from the delightful little book of the Abbé de Bucquoy, there are also visions of books as yet unwritten.

"There, Master Niketas," Baudolino said, "when I was not prey to the temptations of this world, I devoted my nights to imagining other worlds. ... There is nothing better than imagining other worlds," he said, "to forget the painful one we live in. At least so I thought then. I hadn't yet realized that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one."

"The Poet had, who had made a show of attaching no importance to this literary game (though it gnawed at his heart that he himself had not written such beautiful letters, provoking replies even more beautiful), and having no one with whom to fall in love, had fallen in love with the letters themselves — which, as Niketas remarked with a smile — was not surprising, since in youth we are prone to fall in love with love.

A sack," Baudolino explained, like a man who knows a trade well, "is like a grape harvest: you have to divide the tasks. There are those who press the grapes, those who carry off the must in the tuns, those who cook for others, others who go to fetch the good wine from last year.... a sack is a serious job,"

“There are two situations in which you can just be you: The first situation is when you’re alone in a room.”

“The temperament and character traits we have inherited affect our behavior, a process already begun at the genetic stage.”

“The stronger your self-understanding is, the greater your probability of adapting to the people around you.”

“The most important lesson that you can walk away with is that the idiots who surround you are, in fact, not idiots at all. Instead, they are individuals worthy of respect, understanding, and being valued.”

“Pressure, demands, and expectations create stress and can make you feel self-critical and powerless. You may find it difficult to sleep or may feel physical pain in your body.”

“Most people are aware of and sensitive to how they want to be treated. By adjusting yourself to how other people want to be treated, you become more effective in your communication.”

“Just because you’re right, I don’t have to be wrong.”