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Daily Inspiration Quote by Mario Monti

"Try to guess my answer to that question, however temptingly you pose it"

About this Quote

A velvet-rope sentence dressed up as manners. "Try to guess my answer" invites the listener into a parlor game, but it also shifts the burden: the questioner becomes the one on trial for asking, and the audience is nudged to treat the topic as too obvious, too loaded, or too tactically dangerous to spell out. Monti is refusing without performing refusal. He sounds cordial, even playful, while drawing a hard boundary.

The key move is "however temptingly you pose it". Temptation implies seduction, traps, and headlines. In a political setting, that word casts the interviewer as someone trying to coax a slip, a pledge, a confession, a clean quote that can be weaponized. Monti frames himself as the adult in the room, immune to the sugar rush of the gotcha moment. It's a small act of moral positioning: I won't be lured; I won't cheapen this with a soundbite.

Coming from Mario Monti - a technocratic figure associated with crisis management and institutional credibility - the line fits a broader persona. Technocrats trade in restraint; they survive by projecting steadiness when everyone else is gambling with rhetoric. The sentence keeps options open, preserves negotiating space, and signals discipline to markets, allies, and rivals simultaneously. It also flatters the audience: you already know what I'd say, so let's skip the theater. That insinuation is its own kind of power play, turning opacity into competence.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
SourceHelp us find the source
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Monti, Mario. (2026, January 16). Try to guess my answer to that question, however temptingly you pose it. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/try-to-guess-my-answer-to-that-question-however-96815/

Chicago Style
Monti, Mario. "Try to guess my answer to that question, however temptingly you pose it." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/try-to-guess-my-answer-to-that-question-however-96815/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Try to guess my answer to that question, however temptingly you pose it." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/try-to-guess-my-answer-to-that-question-however-96815/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.

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Try to Guess My Answer to That Question by Mario Monti
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About the Author

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Mario Monti (born March 19, 1943) is a Public Servant from Italy.

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