Quotes by Italian authors

"My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity"

"We are the world. We are the people and we deserve better not because we're worth it but because no worth can be put on the incalculable, on the infinite, on life"

"I also used these realistic sounds in a psychological way. With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I used animal sounds - as you say, the coyote sound - so the sound of the animal became the main theme of the movie"

"In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing"

"The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous"

"Politics have no relation to morals"

"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred"

"Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times"

"Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society"

"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived"

"We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either"

"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him"

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things"

"There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt"

"There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless"

"The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes"

"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally"

"The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present"

"The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not"

"The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all"

"The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it"

"One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others"

"Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain"

"Never was anything great achieved without danger"

"Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds"

"Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear"

"Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot"

"Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others"

"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared"

"Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked"