Italian Quotes

• Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Beautiful, Two, Identity

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2363, Delphi Classics

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• 

  The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

  Katharine Hepburn

  Funny, Cute, Movie

  1954 In the Journal American, 22 Feb.

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• When an Italian tells me it's pasta on the plate, I check under the sauce to make sure.

  Alex Ferguson

  Funny, Football, Alex

  Sir Alex Ferguson's 25 years at Manchester United - in quotes" by Benji Inwood, www.theguardian.com. November 4, 2011.

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• Italian women are some of the most beautiful in the world. This is why the Vatican is in Italy. If a man can walk across Italy and retain his celibacy, he's got what it takes to be a priest - or an interior decorator.

  Craig Ferguson

  Beautiful, Men, World

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• I've got a friend who is half-Jewish and half-Italian. If he can't buy it wholesale, he steals it!

  Jackie Mason

  Half, Stealing, Wholesale

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• I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.

  Peter Ustinov

  Travel, Wine, Hell

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  I'd much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size 0.

  Sophia Loren

  Wine, Pasta, Size

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• Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome.

  Robert De Niro

  Rome, Changed

  "Robert De Niro: What I've Learned". Interview with Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. December 14, 2010.

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• This nation is so friendly that the leading cause of injury is getting passionately embraced by strangers.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Humorous, Friendly

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need”, p.141, Ballantine Books

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• In spite of a heavy disguise, a few days' growth on my face, dark glasses, a beret and one of William's jackets that fitted me not at all, as I emerged from a hotel in Lecce, a young fisherman pointed me out to his friends and said "Lavrenche Olivaire." It was not all that amazing; if you're not known in Italy, you're not known anywhere.

  Laurence Olivier

  Funny, Humor, Dark

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• Women react differently: a French woman who sees herself betrayed by her husband will kill his mistress; an Italian will kill her husband; a Spaniard will kill both; and a German will kill herself.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Husband, Mistress, French Woman

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• Some princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects, others have kept their subject towns distracted by factions...Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia [an Italian city] by factions and Pisa by fortress, and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Wise, Cities, Ideas

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• Italian style is a natural attitude. It is about a life of good taste. It doesn't have to be expensive. Simple but with good taste. Luxury is possible to buy. Good taste is not.

  Diego Della Valle

  Attitude, Simple, Luxury

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• If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.

  Winston Churchill

  Struggle, Passion, Rome

  Speech in Rome, www.realclearpolitics.com. January 20, 1927.

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• And I said to myself, here's the problem with the world: The Italians are too Italian, and nobody else is Italian enough.

  Mary Jo Salter

  World, Problem, Enough

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• I don't know how things stand in the thinking of the Italian parliament. The Pope doesn't get mixed up in Italian politics.

  Pope Francis

  Thinking, Pope, Parliament

  In-flight interview from Mexico to Rome, www.catholicnewsagency.com. February 18, 2016.

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• The early bird catches the worm.

  William Camden

  Wisdom, Bird, Tomorrow Never Comes

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• Everything in Italian sounds like 'Give me your money or I'm going to beat your @$$'.

  Jon Stewart

  Giving, Sound, Beats

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• I feel like all the American artists are aesthetically not very interesting and mired in a complaining relationship to its own culture, whereas the Italian work, from a different era, is so comfortable with its relationship to nature and to culture.

  David Salle

  Artist, Interesting, Different

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• there are two types of the male species of Homo sapiens: men, and Italian men.

  Letitia Baldrige

  Men, Two, Males

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• I'm a big pasta fan. I'm a big Italian food fan. Anything Italian - I love cheese, mozzarella. Mozzarella is my favorite, so I have to say anything Italian, I'll take it.

  Malin Akerman

  Say Anything, Fans, Mozzarella

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• If you're in the contracting business in this country, you're suspect. If you're in the contracting business in New Jersey, you're indictable. If you're in the contracting business in New Jersey and are Italian, you're convicted.

  Raymond J. Donovan

  Country, Jersey, Suspects

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• African films should be thought of as offering as many different points of view as the film of any other different continent. Nobody would say that French film is all European film, or Italian film is all European film. And in the same way that those places have different filmmakers that speak to different issues, all the countries in Africa have that too.

  Elvis Mitchell

  Country, Offering, Views

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• God helps those who help themselves.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Success, Bible, God

  Jack Vincent, Benjamin Franklin (2010). “Benjamin Franklin's the Way to Wealth”, p.29, The Way to Wealth

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• Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.

  Iris Murdoch

  Shoes, Boots, Pairs

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