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“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Among the many subjects which interested me, I dwelt especially upon antiquity, for our own age has always repelled me, so that, had it not been for the love of those dear to me, I should have preferred to place myself in spirit in other ages, and consequently I delighted in history.”
― Francesco Petrarca

“Archons live mainly in Saturn's Rings. Rome was known by the "Romans" as Saturnia, not as Rome and Saturn was one of the Roman gods. However, the Archons do not respect the limits of their living space, nor do they respect the limits of the purposes for which they were created.”
― Laurence Galian, Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!

“If you have a library in your garden, everything will be complete.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The massage session ended with both of us soaked, covered in glittery dripping oil. I felt like a Greek salad sloppily drenched in extra virgin. But James was not going to stop. The kisses came thick and fast. And extra massages. “Lie back, wench,â€� he said.
I lay back and stared up at him and above his head at the striped white and blue awning, which was rippling under the pounding impact of the rain. I’d almost forgotten about the rain, though it was coming down heavier than ever, a glittering silver wall, just a few feet away from us.
James had decided that the most intimate p[art of my delicate self needed a delicate multi-facetted many-sided feathery back and forth up and down and sideways type of ecstatic slow-and-fast motion massage and which involved his index finger and his little finger and the palm of his hand and then his tongue, so and it began to build, and build �
“You are being quite intimate, Master,� I gulped, trying to put on a dignified face and control my panting, the deepening huski¬ness of my voice, and the flood of saliva that had filled my mouth and was dribbling out of one corner. I think, given the circum¬stances, that I did quite a good job.
“Really?� he glanced up at me, and then disappeared between my legs, back to work, his tongue darting, hither and thither, truly a busy little bee, harvesting honey here, there, and everywhere.
“Really …â€� I sobbed, in a choked desperate voice, “Very ex¬tremely intimate, oh, oh, oh ... Master, Master, Pity, Master â€�”
― Gwendoline Clermont, Gwendoline Goes To School

“Scipio asked Hannibal, “Whom he thought the greatest captain?â€� The latter answered,
“Alexander . . . because with a small force he defeated armies whose numbers were beyond reckoning, and because he had overrun the remotest regions, merely to visit which was a thing above human aspirations.�
Scipio then asked, � To whom he gave the second place ? � and Hannibal replied,
“To Pyrrhus, for he first taught the method of encamping, and besides, no one ever showed such exquisite judgment in choosing his ground and disposing his posts; while he also possessed the art of conciliating mankind to himself to such a degree that the natives of Italy wished him, though a foreign prince, to hold the sovereignty among them, rather than the Roman people. . . .�
On Scipio proceeding to ask, “Whom he esteemed the third? �
Hannibal replied, “Myself, beyond doubt.�
On this Scipio laughed, and added, “What would you have said if you had conquered me? �
“Then I would have placed Hannibal not only before Alexander and Pyrrhus, but before all other commanders.”
― B.H. Liddell Hart, Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon

“He peeled the towel that imprisoned us away and let it fall. I felt it slide softly off my backside, and I felt, too, his rising excite¬ment, hard, erect, pressing against me.
My nipples were erect, straining, aching, pressed against his strong warm damp chest, the tangle and pattern of his hair. He was a beast, an animal. My excitement was rising again, to match his. It was as if my heart were about to burst or to flip flop, breathless, into a dark abyss.
“Of course, you are crazy, my darling, but, then, so am I.� He kissed me and his oh-so-clever hands seized my waist, tighten¬ing, and then sneaking up my backside, pulling me, pressing me closer, into him. He kissed me again, and his lips moved down my neck to my shoulder and then to my breasts.
“Oh,� I said, “Oh.�
He bent over me, kissing my collarbone and then my breasts, carefully, slowly, his hands traveling down my back, and over my backside; suddenly, he was on his knees, kissing the whorl of 101
my belly button; then he was forcing me open, gently, gently, his tongue exploring caressing, devouring �
“Oh …� I exhaled a deep, shuddering breath. I tipped on the very edge. He bit me, gently. Oooooh!
He pulled in the reins, the bit and bridle, of the frisky frothing filly that I had become; this sudden halt made me wilder, crazier; then, once again, he brought me, trembling, up to the very, very edge of the cliff � of orgasm, of loss of self.
Then he pulled me back. I blinked and trembled. Around the two of us, there was a whole world, a whole universe. It seemed too vivid to be real, like the backdrop in an opera. Venus was brighter and lower now. The sky had turned deep indigo. One by one, stars appeared.”
― Gwendoline Clermont, The Shaming of Gwendoline C

“May the world near and far dread the sons of Aeneas, and if there be land that feared not Rome, may it love Rome instead.”
― Ovid

“We got up, still talking, and began to dance again.
“I want to try something,� he said.
“Okay, what?�
“Twist your arms behind your back.�
“Hmm, okay � Like this?�
“Yes. And now I’ll hold you like that.�
I licked my lips and gave him the look, and I said, “Okay.�
“If you want me to stop, tell me.�
“Okay. I’ll bite you if I don’t like it. If I’m okay, you get a kiss.�
He smiled and clasped my wrists tight, pinioning my arms behind my back. The pressure twisted my shoulders back, just a bit, and thrust my breasts forward. We moved, and I felt my breasts pressing through the silk T-shirt against his chest. I kissed him.
“I like it,� I said. “I like it when you hold me, when you have me � in your power.�
He kissed me. It was a rapid, sudden, ravishing kiss. He let go of my wrists, and I flung my arms around him. We twirled around. He lifted me up. We plunged back down onto the divan. I was astraddle him, on my knees, looking down on him, breathless.
“Lift it off,� he said.
“You lift it off,� I said. I bowed, and he pulled the silk T-shirt over my head, leaving it halfway off for just a minute, and masking my face. He kissed me on the forehead through the silk. His lips pressed on my lips, and I hungrily tried to kiss, but I was a prisoner of the silk, and then, slowly, he pulled the T-shirt off my head, and my lips were free, and our lips met, and we kissed, a deep, free warm, liquid kiss. I was melting into him.
His hands went up and down my back, sweeping, exploring, pressing, and caressing. He kissed my breasts, slowly, licking and biting each nipple.”
― Gwendoline Clermont, The Shaming of Gwendoline C

“It is late afternoon and the daily, or nightly, game of cat and mouse between Rome’s vigili urbani, or traffic police, and the unlicensed street peddlers who set up their portable tables and lamps in Piazza Sant’Egidio where I live, or nearby, is about to start. And, as usual, the mice will win. Not because they are smarter but simply because they care more about breaking the law than the authorities care about enforcing it.”
― Sari Gilbert, My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City

“In Rome, instead, it is clear: people know that most of the time they can get away, not with murder, of course, but with many other misdemeanors. The result? Ignoring the rules has become a quasi national habit.”
― Sari Gilbert, My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City

“In Italy, most laws are honored more in the breach than the observance. “Fatta la legge, trovato l’ingannoâ€�, goes one saying that means, “pass a law and we’ll find a way to get around itâ€�. You don’t have to spend much time in Rome to realize that stop signs, and even red lights, are often disregarded, as are those reading “no parking or standingâ€�, and even “one wayâ€�.”
― Sari Gilbert, My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City

“You know what it takes to teach philosophy here? You have to lie. You have to fling meaningless words as fast as you can at young people, and brood when you can't answer, and make up nonsense and ascribe it to the old Stoics.”
― Anne Rice, Pandora

“We think of Rome as an empire in a way that we do not use for other nations. The others are pretenders. Rome stands alone. Throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Near East its wreckage still draws the traveler and speaks a message that is haunting: this was imperial, this was lasting, this is gone.”
― James Salter, There and Then: The Travel Writing of James Salter

“Rome lifts you up but won't let you settle down - it turns you into a bird without a nest.”
― Glenn Haybittle, Scorched Earth

“Nothing man invents can last forever, including Christ, his most mischievous invention.”
― Gore Vidal, Julian

“Why did the Roman Empire - the greatest civilizing force there has ever been - fall? It was because it became infected at every level by the negative liberty of Christianity. The Roman people started thinking of their personal salvation rather than their collective strength. Once the poison of individualism has spread among the people, Rome's fate was sealed. The collective collapsed. The Dark Ages came upon the West. Once the cohesion of the people has gone, everything fails.”
― Steve Madison, The Quality Agenda: The Search for Excellence

“De ontdekking van Rome laat je voelen dat Latijn weliswaar een dode taal heet, maar dat het een levende sleutel is om de talloze deuren naar ons eigen Europese culturele verleden te openen, niet op zoek naar eenheid, maar juist tastend naar de rijke verscheidenheid als de essentie van dat Europa.”
― Maarten Asscher, De ontdekking van Rome

“I have seen elsewhere houses in ruins, and statues both of gods and men: these are men still. 'Tis all true; and yet, for all that, I cannot so often revisit the tomb of that so great and so puissant city,—[Rome]â€� that I do not admire and reverence it. The care of the dead is recommended to us; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these dead; I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of those of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan before I knew the Louvre, and the Tiber before I knew the Seine.....
.... Finding myself of no use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it, that the free, just, and flourishing state of that ancient Rome (for I neither love it in its birth nor its old age) interests and impassionates me; and therefore I cannot so often revisit the sites of their streets and houses, and those ruins profound even to the Antipodes, that I am not interested in them. Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the sight of places which we know to have been frequented and inhabited by persons whose memories are recommended in story, moves us in some sort more than to hear a recital of their—acts or to read their writings? It pleases me to consider their face, bearing, and vestments: I pronounce those great names betwixt my teeth, and make them ring in my ears: Of things that are in some part great and admirable, I admire even the common parts: I could wish to see them in familiar relations, walk, and sup. It were ingratitude to contemn the relics and images of so many worthy and valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their example, give us so many good instructions, knew we how to follow them.
And, moreover, this very Rome that we now see, deserves to be beloved.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“That at Rome one saw nothing but the sky under which she had been built, and the outline of her site: that the knowledge we had of her was abstract, contemplative, not palpable to the actual senses: that those who said they beheld at least the ruins of Rome, went too far, for the ruins of so gigantic a structure must have commanded greater reverence-it was nothing but her sepulchre. The world, jealous of her, prolonged empire, had in the first place broken to pieces that admirable body, and then, when they perceived that the remains attracted worship and awe, had buried the very wreck itself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, Essais de Montaigne

“My friend Mimmo, who owns three men’s shops in Rome but who comes from Naples where his father was in the same business, says that nowadays, after two days in Naples, he can’t wait to leave again. “Life in Rome is not easy, but at least there are some certainties. In Naples, forget it. The only thing that counts there is prepotenza,â€� roughly, bullying or arrogance.”
― Sari Gilbert, My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City

“Par tibi, Roma, nihil, cum sis prope tota ruina.”
― Hildebert van Lavardin

“Upon the proper use and conservation of sexual force the progress of civilization itself depends. All history shows that just in proportion as the sex instinct is kept sacred, pure, and the life essence properly used and converted into creative, productive power, does a nation reach a high state of civilization. Wherever this instinct becomes generally perverted, as it did in ancient Rome, people become devitalized, lose their physical and mental stamina, and rapidly deteriorate. Where it is protected by virtue and purity of life, the nation rises in the scale of civilization; where it is abused, perverted, the nation sinks to the level of low-flying ideals.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The crime of silence

“It is Paris that makes one feel poetic, Rome that makes one feel heroic, yet it is Miami that makes one feel young.”
― Pietros Maneos

“How little you know the age you live in," says a god in Ovid, "if you fancy that honey is sweeter than cash in hand.”
― Will Durant, Caesar and Christ - The Story of Civilization 03

“Na een paar maanden constateert hij [Goethe] dat het hem zwaar valt rekenschap af te leggen van zijn verblijf, want - zo noteert hij op 25 januari 1787 - 'zoals men merkt dat de zee steeds dieper wordt naarmate men haar verder opvaart, zo vergaat het ook mij bij het beschouwen van deze stad'. Zich Rome werkelijk toe-eigenen vergt een mensenleven - zo verzucht de auteur enkele maanden later - 'of zelfs het leven van vele mensen, die stap voor stap van elkaar leren.”
― Maarten Asscher, De ontdekking van Rome

“Iedereen kent de uitdrukking 'Vedere Napoli e poi muori', oftewel 'Eerst Napels zien en dan sterven'. Met betrekking tot Rome zou ik een daaraan tegenovergesteld motto willen bepleiten, dat recht doet aan de even veelzijdige als vitale krachten die van deze stad uitgaan: 'Eerst Rome zien en dan leven.”
― Maarten Asscher, De ontdekking van Rome

“And that one night in Rome
I realised that the past
was keeping our love alive
in ways only the gods could write about.”
― Laura Chouette

“For years, in between our short trips overseas, my husband Dave and I started talking about a different kind of trip, a long-term trip. Both of us loved the food, wine, and people of Italy, and we began talking/dreaming about someday living in Italy for an entire year. We named this dream our Beautiful Dream—our “Bel Sogno.”
― Pam Saylor

“For some reason, I found the fact that our two men were naked, while Jester and I were, in a way, clothed, particularly exciting. Jester was adorned in paint, and I had my feathered pinioned wings and my owl mask. I was a totem, my man was transparent and naked; he was my servant and my slave, and he was that pure thing â€� a naked male animal, and, tonight, he was mine.
“To-wit, to-whoo,� I invited my servant with my owl call.
He kissed me; the kiss was fierce and unending, or so it seemed, an eternal kiss, a kiss that would carry us into infinity, his arms around me, grasping me, clasping me under my pinioned arms; his lips explored mine; our lips merged in one; my eyes were closed; it was pure sensation: the pouring rain, my dripping feathers, my pinioned arms pressed together, my shoulders pulled back tight, my breasts tensed and straining forward; his chest, hard and smooth and muscular against my breasts; his hands on me; his lips meeting my lips; his tongue mingling with my tongue. I breathed him in. Inwardly, I sighed, “Oh, Master!� But it came out as a quizzical “To-wit, to-whoo?� He whispered, “Oh, Goddess, oh, beautiful Owl.� He held me so tight it was as if he wanted to consume me, merge my body in his, to absorb me totally.
Finally, he stepped back, unhooked the owl mask-and-hood from the collar, and lifted it off, and placed it carefully on an iron bench, which was the only furniture in the gazebo. My face, now, was naked.
And then, standing in the rain, we made love, me with my arms still pinioned behind me, totally at his mercy, thrilling at my helplessness, and entrusting myself totally to his love ...”
― Gwendoline Clermont, Gwendoline Goes To School