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1 " Family. The greatest loyalty after God. "
― , Blood & Beauty: The Borgias
2 " Ah, he has too many ideas, that man da Vinci. His mind works faster than his hands. "
3 " It was so cold. In the monastery. Sometimes the wind came from the sea with ice in it... It could freeze the skin off your face. Once the snow was so deep we couldn't get out of the doors to the woodshed. A monk jumped from a window. He sank into a drift and took a long time to get up. That night, they made me sleep next to the stove. I was small, thin, like a piece of birch bark. But then the Stove went out.Father Bernard took me into his cell... It was he who first gave me chalk and paper. He was so old his eyes his eyes looked as if he was crying. But he was never sad. In winter he had fewer blankets than the others. He said he didn't need them because God warmed him.(...)But even Father Bernard was cold that night. He laid me down on the bed next to him, wrapped me in an animal skin, then in his own arms. He told me stories about Jesus. How His love could wake the dead and how with Him in one's heart one could heat the world... When I woke it was light. The snow had stopped. I was warm. But he was cold. I gave him the skin but his body was stiff. I didn't know what to do. I got out a piece of paper from his chest under the bed and drew him, lying there. His face had a smile on it. I knew that God had been there when he died. That now He was in me, and because of Father Bernard I would be warm forever. "
― , The Birth of Venus
4 " There have been none like us before. And there will be none afterwards. Be careful what you write. "
5 " The Devil may take the reckless, but the good will surely die of boredom. Boredom and frustration. "
6 " Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all. And I had noticed him, as he had me. God help us. "
7 " Any man in love with Cesare is already half in love with his sister. Now, when [Pedro Calderon] shuts his eyes, he cannot see anything else. "
8 " Family. The greatest loyalty after God in the world. "
9 " So if we could not have love, my husband and I, then at least I could have alchemy. "
10 " One enemy at the time. "
11 " Ambassadors, of course, do not blush. It is a requisite of the job that they can sustain any manner of insult without any visible change at all to their face. "
12 " She has never liked sleeping alone. Even as a small child, she would steel herself to brave the black soup of the room as far as her brother’s bed, creeping in beside him. And he, who when awake would rather fight than talk, would put his arms around her and stroke her hair until their warmness mingled and she fell asleep. "
13 " There is more glory in peace than in war, "
14 " If you love a man for his honesty, you cannot become angry when he shows it. "
15 " Either you’re standing under your halos, eyes up to heaven, or you’re munching apples in their faces and flashing your bush. I’m not even sure they know which they prefer. The best you can do is choose when you change your costume. "
16 " And, such was the sound that the chorus made together, that to have been a part of it at all was enough for me. "
17 " Johannes Burchard. The only man in Rome whose face remains the same be it perfume or shit under his nose. "
18 " Any man in love with Cesare is already half in love with his sister. "
19 " Make enemies if you have to- and you will- but always make sure the most powerful stay your friends. "
20 " Together he [Girolamo Savonarola] and his archenemy Lorenzo [de' Medici] would have been the stuff of gargoyles. One could almost imagine the diptych in which their profiles confronted each other, their noses as powerful as their personalities. "