Quotes on Italy, quotations and aphorisms on Italy, Italians and what the other people think of them by popular authors. You can also download a free e-book in English and Italian.
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ENGLISH QUOTES ABOUT ITALY AND THE ITALIANS
People are the same all the world over!
The name Italy comes from the word Italia, meaning “calf land,” perhaps because the bull was a symbol of the Southern Italian tribes.
Historical News
The capital of Italy is Rome (also known as the Eternal City) and is almost 3,000 years old. It has been the capital since 1871 and is home to the Dome of St. Peter’s, the Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum, and the famous Trevi Fountain.
Historical News
By the year 2000 B.C., Italic tribes (Oscans, Umbrians, Latins) had established themselves in Italy. They were followed by the Etruscans in 800 B.C. and the Greeks, who established colonies known as Magna Graeca in southern Italy (present-day Apulia). Rome was founded in 753 B.C., and soon thereafter the Romans began conquering the peninsula.
Historical News
At its height in A.D. 117, the Roman Empire stretched from Portugal in the West to Syria in the east, and from Britain in the North to the North African deserts across the Mediterranean. It covered 2.3 million miles (two-thirds the size of the U.S.) and had a population of 120 million people. During the Middle Ages, Rome had perhaps no more than 13,000 residents.
Historical News
When McDonald’s opened in 1986 in Rome, food purists outside the restaurant gave away free spaghetti to remind people of their culinary heritage.
Italians created parmesan, provolone, mozzarella, and many other cheeses. Parmesan cheese originated in the area around
Historical News
Vatican City is the only nation in the world that can lock its own gates at night. It has its own phone company, radio, T.V. stations, money, and stamps. It even has its own army, the historic Swiss Guard.
Historical News
Parma, Italy. Italians also created many other cheeses, including gorgonzola, mozzarella, provolone, and ricotta. No one knows when the pizza was invented, but the people of Naples made it popular.
Historical News
The European Union law states that we have the free movement of companies, they have freedom of establishment. This is in fact the entire point of the whole Single Market program. One company, based anywhere inside the EU, can then sell to all 27 other countries in the EU without needing to have a permanent establishment in each of those 27. And believe me the EU isn’t going to allow someone to over turn that very basic foundation of the entire project. It’s just not going to happen. So I am perfectly free to buy any goods that are legally sold throughout Europe, provided that they can be delivered, even though they are not legal in Italy, even because in Italy only stupidity is legal.
Carl William Brown
Italian is a Romance language descended from Vulgar Latin, just like Spanish, French, Portuguese and Romanian, the dialect spoken by the people living during the last years of the Roman Empire. Before the Romans came, people spoke their own languages, and the mixture of these original tongues with Latin produced many of the languages and dialects that are still in use today. Italian has more Latin words than any other Romance languages, and its grammatical system remains similar to Latin. Latin is still the official language of the Vatican City in Rome. In the 1930s and 40s, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) tried to eliminate foreign words from Italian. In soccer, “goal” became “meta” and Donald Duck became “Paperino.” Mickey Mouse became “Topolino” and Goofy became “Pippo.” While the ban was not permanent, the Italian names remain common.
Historical News
The world’s first operas were composed in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century. Opera reached the height of popularity in the nineteenth century, when the works of Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) became hugely popular. The late tenor Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007) is a national celebrity, and Claudio Monteverdi (c. 1567-1643) is regarded as the father of the modern opera.
Historical News
Venice, Italy, is one of the world’s most beautiful and unusual cities. It was founded over 1,400 years ago on a collection of muddy islands in a wide and shallow lagoon. It has been sinking into the mud for centuries and is plagued by floods.
Italy was one of the founders of the EU and is a member of the Group of Eight (G8), a forum for eight of the world’s most powerful nations.
Historical News
In Italy there are about 60 million people and we know how high is the percentage of morons on national soil. However, in China there are about 1.4 billion people and in India almost 1.3 billion. Therefore I wonder then, if more or less all the world is a small village, with how many morons should we have to come to terms on the territory of this stupid planet. It’s the same the world over, or the world is the same wherever you go!
Carl William Brown
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian-born scientist. When he argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun, the Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo in his own house. The Church issued a formal apology in 1992.
Historical News
A part of northern Italy called Val Camonica contains about 350,000 petroglyphs that were created nearly 10,000 years ago. Brescia is a famous town at 75 km from there, it is very popular for Beretta arms industry, the oldest in the world, the Garda Lake and also because Carl William Brown was born there.
Historical News
Before the Romans came, people spoke their own languages, and the mixture of these original tongues with Latin produced many of the languages and dialects that are still in use today. If you know one of the Romance languages, you can often understand bits of another. Just as members of the same family can look similar but have totally different characters. You find the same contradictions in the dialects (regional or local language differences) in Italy and in other countries. If you visit Italy, you’ll hear various accents and dialects as you travel the country. Despite the number of dialects, you may be surprised to discover that everybody understands your Italian and you understand theirs. (Italians don’t normally speak in their dialect with foreigners.)
Linguistic News
About 70% of our English words come from Latin. This alone make Latin the most important language to influence English. For example, the word, promise, comes from “pro-mitto,” meaning to send before. Here are some more examples: word = verbum; canine = canis; college =collegium. I think you get the picture. Also Latin has influenced our grammar. For example, the distinction between “I” and “me” is based on cases. I equals nominative case in Latin and me equals dative, ablative and accusative cases. Even little things like the improper use of split infinitives come from Latin, since in Latin infinitives cannot be split. For example, to love is amare (one word) in Latin. So, in short, Latin continues to play a huge role.
Linguistic News
Italian is the official language of Italy and it is spoken by about 70 million people, primarily in this country. It’s the official language of San Marino as well, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in Ticino and Grigioni cantons.
Linguistic News
The Italian Flag or il Tricolore is a green, white and red tricolor flag with equal panels representing the territories of the Republic of Italy. Adopted as the national flag on 1 January 1948, official colour designation under the Pantone Textile policy was established in 2003, then ratified into law in 2006.
Historical News
In Italy there are about 60 million people and we know how high is the percentage of morons on national soil. However, in China there are about 1.4 billion people and in India almost 1.3 billion. Therefore I wonder then, if more or less all the world is a small village, with how many morons should we have to come to terms on the territory of this stupid planet.
Carl William Brown
When I was growing up, my parents told me, “Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.” I tell my daughters, “Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.”
Thomas Friedman
Who goes to Rome a beast returns a beast.
Italian Proverb
Italy hasn’t had a government since Mussolini.
Richard Nixon
How did Italy manage to end up with no Caribbean islands at all? Christopher Columbus took the trouble to discover the Caribbean personally before the end of the fifteenth century. Try to get a decent plate of spaghetti there now.
Calvin Trillin
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
Bertrand Russell
In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
Orson Welles
If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.
Mario Monti
In the Church of San Giovanni (One of the finest Renaissance churches in Italy) you can see Tintoretto’s masterpiece, “Madonna with Four Saints”. In the Church of San Giacomo you can see Botticelli’s masterpiece, “Two Saints with the Madonna”. In the Church of San Bartolomeo do not miss Tiepolo’s huge canvas, “Madonna with Twenty Three Saints”. In the chapel of San Marco, the focus of attention is Perugino’s small painting, “Madonna with just One Saint”.
George Mikes
Italy is a geographical expression.
Prince Metternich
Certainly, in Italy, nobody takes light for granted.
Barbara Steele
A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.
Samuel Johnson
Being blonde is definitely a different state of mind. I can’t really put my finger on it, but the artifice of being blonde has some incredible sort of sexual connotation. Men really respond to it. I love blonde hair but it really does something different to you. I feel more grounded when I have dark hair, and I feel more ethereal when I have light hair. It’s unexplainable. I also feel more Italian when my hair is dark.
Madonna
Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.
Erica Jong
Internet penetration in Italy is quite low and the Berlusconi media machine controls most of what people see.
Joichi Ito
I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, a little village in Italy. They gave me the biggest gift: poverty.
Roberto Benigni
Gli italiani sono irrimediabilmente fatti per la dittatura.
Ennio Flaiano
The ideological mix-up is a natural, exasperating and, at the same time, endearing feature in this country of fierce individualists. There are seventy-five political parties in Italy – although not all are represented in parliament. Most of these parties are very small but even the smallest can boast of a sharp and unbridgeable ideological split. There is a party which has only one single member. He is schizophrenic.
George Mikes
I do not have any political commitments anymore. I’m politically a total agnostic; I’m one of the few writers in Italy who refuses to be identified with a specific political party.
Italo Calvino
I’m a pretty calm person. That came from living in Italy for a long time. Nothing works, nothing is on time. You have to learn to deal with it.
Tom Ford
In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements, – into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion.
Edward Everett
I say to the young, be happy that you were born in Italy because of the beauty of the human capital, both masculine and feminine, of this country… No other country has such human capital.
Rita Levi-Montalcini
On one occasion a shopkeeper told me – and I know he was speaking the truth – that he bought nylon stockings at 400 lire and sold them at 2,000. I asked him weather he was a notorious and exceptionally rapacious robber. He assured me that, on the contrary, he was well known and widely honoured for his moderation and self-denial.
George Mikes
Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome.
Robert De Niro
But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don’t. Don’t evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.
Umberto Eco
Italy will always have the best food.
Diane von Furstenberg
If we were the problem, it would be very convenient – kick Greece out, everything’s fine. What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the euro zone? We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice.
George Papandreou
The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom.
Oriana Fallaci
Prices in Italy are only slightly lower than in France, which means that Italy is a very expensive country for everyone, natives, visitors and tourists.
George Mikes
No matter where I’ve been overseas, the food stinks, except in Italy.
Carmen Electra
You go to a restaurant in the States and kids have these game boards at the table. You don’t see that in Italy or Spain. It’s not because they can’t afford to buy them, it’s because that’s not what eating together as a family is about.
Emeril Lagasse
Can a film really change anything? I mean, what was the last time? Maybe the Italian neo-realists, where they became the voice and the heart and the soul of Italy, a nation that had been destroyed. I don’t know.
Martin Scorsese
In Italy the censor is very old and there are many judges and psychiatrists who analyse you.
Dario Argento
You may have the universe if I may have Italy.
Giuseppe Verdi
The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.
Thomas Paine
There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy.
E. M. Forster
I once asked a hermit in Italy how he could venture to live alone, in a single cottage, on the top of a mountain, a mile from any habitation? He replied, that Providence was his next-door neighbor.
Laurence Sterne
If I am in Italy, I’m going to have a cappuccino and two small brioches and then a mix of orange and grapefruit. I don’t drink tea in Italy.
Christian Louboutin
Repetita iuvant. Italy, a land of great saints, poets, sailors, artists, statesmen, businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals, professors, journalists, whores, gangsters, religious parasites and dickheads.
Carl William Brown
Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the ’30s, East Germany in the ’50s, Czechoslovakia in the ’60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the ’70s, China in the ’80s and ’90s – all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.
Naomi Wolf
And also, Sergio Leone was considered in Italy a director of category B, not a big director.
Claudia Cardinale
In Italy we have not a Common law legal system, we have a stupid one instead!
Carl William Brown
Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.
Anna Akhmatova
Hotel bills are scrupulously honest all over Italy… The only case which puzzled me occured in Naples. I wondered whether they were justified in adding 230 lire for heating to my bill in early June.
George Mikes
There was in Italy a hidden demand for a boring government which would try to tell the truth in non-political jargon.
Mario Monti
Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?
Erica Jong
As they say in Italy, Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other. The Medici family
had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible.
Mario Batali
Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy! (Tu paradiso degli esuli, Italia!)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Cathedral of this ancient and beautiful city of ……….* is of particular interest. It is the third largest Cathedral in Italy. It is a magnificent Gothic building (not pure Gothic but pure enough for the vast majority of tourists). The Italians, in their outlandish way, like to refer to the Cathedral as Il Duomo. * Fill in the name of the city with pencil. Rub it afterwards.
George Mikes
Ireland, Italy and Brazil are the most musical places for me. They’re extremely musical cultures and anything you pitch they basically catch.
James Taylor
I understand that Italy could have been associated with the idea of an undisciplined country in the past.
Mario Monti
We are not only talking about waves of refugees coming to Greece, to Italy, and elsewhere. Destabilizing the Balkans means Lebanonization, and that means destabilizing all of Europe.
Fatos Nano
Put yourself in the position of an up-and-coming artist living in early-sixteenth-century Italy. Now imagine trying to distinguish yourself from the other artists living in your town: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, or Titian. Is it any wonder that the Italian High Renaissance lasted only 30 years?
Jerry Saltz
I am like a cartoon strip; I am like Donald Duck; everybody knows me in Italy.
Roberto Benigni
I think people in Italy live their lives better than we do. It’s an older country, and they’ve learned to celebrate dinner and lunch, whereas we sort of eat as quickly as we can to get through it.
George Clooney
Italy is a divided country without a center.
Christian Lacroix
Classical music and pop are two different universes, each with its own difficulties, peculiarities, depth and artistic dignity. In Italy, I think there is a fairly clear line of demarcation, but the history of music is full of fusion. Popular and classical music have always found points of contact, of crossing, exchange, both drawing mutual profit.
Andrea Bocelli
Yes, young men, Italy owes to you an undertaking which has merited the applause of the universe. You have conquered and you will conquer still, because you are prepared for the tactics that decide the fate of battles.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
The main characteristic of English conversation is that no one ever speaks; of Italian that everyone speaks at the same time. One iron law reigns supreme in Italian conversation: the survival of the loudest.
George Mikes
Italy’s assets are her style, her beauty, her creativity, her passion, her energy, her technology; and these will be core brand values of all our cars. Fiat as a company has a long way to go and a steep road ahead.
Lapo Elkann
It’s a family that’s loaded with grudges and passion. We come from a long line of robbers and highwaymen in Italy, you know. Killers, even.
Nicolas Cage
The political tradition of ancient thought, filtered in Italy by Machiavelli, says one thing clearly: every prince needs allies, and the bigger the responsibility, the more allies he needs.
Silvio Berlusconi
In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don’t understand.
Vivienne Westwood
I’m very pro-American – my entire family escaped poverty in Italy because they rightly believed in the American dream.
Camille Paglia
In Italy there are many illegal things, but stupidity is the most legal of all.
Carl William Brown
Move to Italy. I mean it: they know about living in debt; they don’t care. I stayed out there for five months while I was making a film called “Order Of Death”, and they’ve really got it sussed. Nice cars. Sharp suits. Great food. Stroll into work at 10. Lunch from 12 till three. Leave work at five. That’s living!
John Lydon
I love Italy and I say I am from Italy wherever I go.
Lapo Elkann
How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate, books that are open, without a preconceived plan.
Italo Calvino
The more democratic and open a society is, the more it’s exposed to terrorism. The more a country is free, not governed by a police regime, the more it risks hijackings or massacres like the ones that took place for many years in Italy and Germany and other parts of Europe.
Oriana Fallaci
Italians intellectuals are few and far between. This is not a derogatory statement; nor is it a praise… Italy can boast of a number of intellectuals – brilliant and witty. But their number is small – much smaller than in France, England or Germany. The Italians, as a nation, do not read much. Observe a rush hour crowd in London or New York on the one hand and in Rome on the other. In London and New York one person in ten will be without a paper; in Rome one in ten will have a paper. The Italians will watch the women in the bus or tram, the crowd in the street or the passing shop-windows but they do not read.
George Mikes
Polenta is to northern Italy what bread is to Tuscany, what pasta is to Emilia-Romagna and what rice is to the Veneto: easy to make, hungry to absorb other flavours, and hugely versatile.
Yotam Ottolenghi
Fresh egg pasta is traditionally served in the north of Italy with butter, cream and rich meat sauces, whereas dried pasta is more at home with the tomato- and olive oil-based ones of the south.
Yotam Ottolenghi
Inside me I’m Ghanaian, and I’m proud to be African. But of course I’m Italian. I was born in Italy. I’ve never been to Africa in my life, but I will go one day.
Mario Balotelli
In Italy, there are so many significant architectural structures in history such as the Pantheon in Rome, or the Duomo.
Tadao Ando
If countries were people, England and France would be old men. Italy would be dead. Compared with them, America is in its 20s.
William J. Adams
In Italy, I had an Afro, and a lot of the kids came up and felt my hair. It really was funny. I wish I had understood Italian.
Sugar Ray Leonard
No part of Italian society should see itself as exempt from the effort to save Italy from collapse.
Giorgio Napolitano
‘Cliffhanger’ got me in the best shape of my life, working at 10,000 feet up in the mountains. And everybody was great. I lived in Italy for seven months doing that movie. It was a great vacation.
Michael Rooker
When I think of Italy now, I think of accessories, possessions, bad TV, fake boobs, BMWs.
Valeria Golino
Italy needed structural reforms to become more competitive.
Mario Monti
Open my heart and you will see graved inside of it, “Italy”.
Robert Browning
Politicians in Italy seem to spend so much time giving interviews, they don’t have time to make the laws.
Toni Servillo
