1519 Quotes by Italian authors

Italian sayings carry the warmth of a kitchen and the gravity of a cathedral, braiding tenderness with irony. Love, beauty, and loyalty sit beside hunger, time, and fate; saints and skeptics share the same bench. From Dante to De André, voices favor clarity over ornament, quick wit over sermon, turning daily life into distilled wisdom. Coastal winds and factory smoke, dialect and high lyric, a moral compass that sways yet does not snap, and an aftertaste, espresso-bitter, sunlit, define their music.

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"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so"

Galileo Galilei, Scientist

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them"

Galileo Galilei, Scientist

"For it is in giving that we receive"

Francis of Assisi, Saint

Francis of Assisi

"The air soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it"

Christopher Columbus, Adventurer

Christopher Columbus

"Give me a laundry-list and I'll set it to music"

Gioachino Rossini, Composer

"Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform, and mortal men lay hold on heaven"

Aulus Persius Flaccus, Poet

"The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!"

Maria Montessori, Educator

"I like the body. I like to design everything to do with the body"

Gianni Versace, Designer

Gianni Versace

"That is the key of this collection, being yourself. Don't be into trends. Don't make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live"

Gianni Versace, Designer

Gianni Versace

"I was an observer. I liked to listen rather than openly express myself. This trait is something that I've retained over the years"

Giorgio Armani, Designer

Giorgio Armani

"But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth"

Umberto Eco, Novelist

"Everything you see I owe to spaghetti"

Sophia Loren, Actress

"Doubts are like stains on a shirt. I like shirts with stains, because when I'm given a shirt that's too clean, one that's completely white, I immediately start having doubts"

Antonio Tabucchi, Writer

"In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream"

Luigi Pirandello, Playwright

"Liars are always most disposed to swear"

Vittorio Alfieri, Dramatist

"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"

Nick Mancuso, Actor

Nick Mancuso

"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"

Ennio Morricone, Composer

"To some it is Napoleon, to some it is a philosophical struggle, to me it is allegro con brio"

Arturo Toscanini, Musician

"I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I haven't had time for tobacco since"

Arturo Toscanini, Musician

"Sex is the great equalizer"

Nick Mancuso, Actor

Nick Mancuso

"You may have the universe if I may have Italy"

Giuseppe Verdi, Composer

"I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism"

Oriana Fallaci, Journalist

"And also, Sergio Leone was considered in Italy a director of category B, not a big director"

Claudia Cardinale, Actress

"In reality art is always for everyone and for no one"

Eugenio Montale, Poet

"Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale"

Elsa Schiaparelli, Designer

Elsa Schiaparelli

"Fascism was a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place"

Ignazio Silone, Author

"A woman is always a mystery: one must not be fooled by her face and her hearts inspiration"

Edmondo De Amicis, Novelist

Edmondo De Amicis

"Slumber not in the tents of your fathers. The world is advancing"

Giuseppe Mazzini, Activist

"If no producer, no movie"

Dino De Laurentiis, Director

"The monarchy unites us; the republic would divide us"

Francesco Crispi, Politician

"Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan"

Galeazzo Ciano, Politician

"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"

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

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

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

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

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others"

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

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

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution"

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

"I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it"

Niccolo Machiavelli, Writer

Niccolo Machiavelli

"The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue"

Leonardo da Vinci, Artist

Leonardo da Vinci

"I have wasted my hours"

Leonardo da Vinci, Artist

Leonardo da Vinci

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