Rome Quotes: Eternal Wisdom from the Eternal City

"All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome"

"Every one soon or late comes round by Rome"

"The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting"

"German is more familiar now since I live part of the year in Rome and part in the German part of Switzerland. But it's not difficult to sing in German; it's difficult to feel in German. This takes time. It's a culture"

Cecilia Bartoli, Musician

"A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art"

Benjamin Disraeli, Statesman

"Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning"

Giotto di Bondone, Artist

"Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?"

Camille Paglia, Author

"All roads indeed lead to Rome, but theirs also is a more mystical destination, some bourne of which no traveller knows the name, some city, they all seem to hint, even more eternal"

Richard Le Gallienne, Poet

"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville"

Flannery O'Connor, Author

"When I was flying to Rome, we flew over London; I felt like bursting into tears. It's part of me, so I can't leave London behind for good"

Robert Pattinson, Actor

"Rome had Senators too, that's why it declined"

Frank Dane

"America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub"

C. Wright Mills, Sociologist

"Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?"

Will Rogers, Actor

"Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar"

George Eliot, Author

"I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome"

Epicurus, Philosopher

"I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome"

Julius Caesar, Leader

"Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

"The American Republic was bound - is still bound - to follow in the centuries to come the same course to destruction as did Rome"

Robert Welch

"If we were living in ancient Rome or Greece, I would be considered sickly and unattractive. The times dictate that thin is better for some strange reason, which I think is foolish"

Gwyneth Paltrow, Actress

"Rome was not built in one day"

John Heywood, Dramatist

"I went to the Conservatory of Music in school in Rome"

Cecilia Bartoli, Musician

"The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall"

Taylor Caldwell, Author

"Rome was great in arms, in government, in law"

Goldwin Smith, Historian

"It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a great and wealthy city"

Goldwin Smith, Historian

"That Rome was comparatively great and wealthy is certain"

Goldwin Smith, Historian

"For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism"

Benjamin Tucker, Activist

"Thus again the Netherlands, for the first time since the fall of Rome, were united under one crown imperial. They had already been once united, in their slavery to Rome"

John Lothrop Motley, Historian

"I go to Paris, I go to London, I go to Rome, and I always say, 'There's no place like New York. It's the most exciting city in the world now. That's the way it is. That's it.'"

Robert De Niro, Actor

"I remember the Curia said, that's up to the American bishops, not up to Rome"

Hans Kung, Theologian

"For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career"

John Lothrop Motley, Historian

"I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble"

Augustus, Royalty

"No white group has founded a major religion on this planet. The major religious were started in the Orient and the Middle East, not in Greece and Rome. I always knew you racists didn't have a prayer"

Jane Elliot, Actress

"Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city"

Anatole Broyard, Critic

"The ecclesiastical system of Rome, and particularly its leaders, for a thousand years and more thought that the earth is fixed and that everything else revolves about it"

Joseph Franklin Rutherford, Clergyman

"The problem for Rome, then, is how and when the intervention should be done with a sense of the possibility of going too far in limiting the freedom of theologians. This is not an easy time - neither for Rome nor for the theologians"

Godfried Danneels, Clergyman

"Accusations are made directly to Rome about theologians from persons who are not theologians. Some of these accusations are anonymous. The local bishop should be the one to relate to theologians to determine orthodoxy"

Godfried Danneels, Clergyman

"Rome should sometimes intervene and say this or that is not in conformity with the Catholic faith. Theologians should understand that. Some theologians go too far, for example, reducing the Catholic faith to a universal philosophy"

Godfried Danneels, Clergyman

"When I first met Sean Connery he was as charming and wonderful as I first anticipated. I left Rome thinking: even if I don't do this, at least I have had a day with Sean"

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Actress

"When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but in Milan I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal"

Saint Ambrose, Saint

"Ritual murder is referred to in court files which are located in Rome. There are pictures in it which show that in 23 cases, the Church itself has dealt with the question"

Julius Streicher, Soldier

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