Fausto Cercignani quotes:

Sometimes true tolerance requires an extraordinary strength, which we are often too weak to exercise.

Unlike money, hope is all: for the rich as well as for the poor.

Your identity is like your shadow: not always visible and yet always present.

When you would suffocate or ignore dissent, remember how many times you dissented.

Your will cannot always choose the path; very often the route is determined by chance or by the will of others.

Inner freedom demands the rejection of any imposition that injures our dignity.

Secret thoughts are only half free: they fly undisturbed in the skies of the inner freedom, but they can never leave them.

If you are living in the past or in the future, you will never find a meaning in the present.

We learn a lot from the mistakes of others, but even more from our own.

As long as his strength permits, the poor mortal must always climb new mountains.

Do not confuse fantasy with imagination; the former consumes itself in daydreaming, the latter stimulates creativity in the arts and in the sciences.

Personal dignity is to be measured with the yardstick of one's conscience, not with that of other people's judgement.

It is certainly a good thing always to forgive with generosity, but it is no doubt just never to forget the wrongs received: they belong to the route that leads to inner maturity.

A secret remains a secret until you make someone promise never to reveal it.