Nowhere has truth such a short life as in Sicily; a fact has scarcely happened five minutes before its genuine kernel has vanished, been camouflaged, embellished, disfigured, squashed, annihilated by imagination and self interest; shame, fear, generosity, malice, opportunism, charity,… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share
“Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore, continueremo a crederci il sale della terra." ("We were the Leopards, the 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… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share
Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty. — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
Nowhere has truth such a short life as in Sicily; a fact has scarcely happened five minutes before its genuine kernel has vanished, been camouflaged, embellished, disfigured, squashed, annihilated by imagination and self interest; shame, fear, generosity, malice, opportunism, charity, all the passions, good as well as evil, fling themselves onto the fact and tear it to pieces; very soon… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share
“We’re not blind in spirit, Father. We’re just human beings in a changing world”. Il gattopardo” — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
“Don Fabrizio remembered a conversation with Father Pirrone some months before in the sunlit observatory. What the Jesuit had predicted had come to pass.… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
“Si queremos que todo siga como está, es preciso que todo cambie” — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
To rage and mock is gentlemanly, to grumble and whine is not. — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
“All Sicilian expression, even the most violent, is really wish fulfillment: our sensuality is a hankering for oblivion, our shooting and knifing a hankering… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
If we want everything to remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change. — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
“That solar hue, that variegation of gleam and shade, made Don Fabrizio's heart ache as he stood black and stiff in a doorway: this… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
“For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
“E poi quando si è con Tancredi ci si può forse irritare qualche volta, ma non ci si annoia mai; e questo è molto.… — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Copy Share Image
