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

  Iris Murdoch

  Shoes, Boots, Pairs

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• Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

  John Heywood

  Birthday, Gratitude, Horse

  John Heywood (1562). “The Proverbs, Epigrams, and Miscellanies of John Heywood ...”, p.391

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• All is well that ends well

  Emily Rodda

  Wise, Drama, Venice

  Emily Rodda (2008). “The Key to Rondo”, p.332, Scholastic Inc.

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• A fool and his money are soon parted. - Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.

  Thomas Tusser

  Money, Taxation, Taxes Funny

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• An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Get Well Soon, Health, Apples

  James C. Humes, Benjamin Franklin (1995). “The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes”, Harpercollins

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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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• Help yourself and God will help you

  Joan of Arc

  Helping, Help Yourself, Gods Will

  Saint Joan (of Arc) (1968). “The Trial of Joan of Arc: Being the Verbatim Report of the Proceedings from the Orleans Manuscript”

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• All's well that ends well.

  John Heywood

  Wise, Wisdom, Drama

  John Heywood (1867). “The proverbs and epigrams of John Heywood: with an app. of variations”, p.21

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• A fool and his money are soon married.

  Carolyn Wells

  Money, Fool, Taxation

  Carolyn Wells (1912). “The Lover's Baedeker and Guide to Arcady”

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• Jesus was a poor, black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people. The Romans were Italian - which means they were Europeans, which means they were white - and the Romans ran everything in Jesus' country.

  Jeremiah Wright

  Country, Jesus, Mean

  "Cain: Rev. Jeremiah Wright-Obama connection still 'fair game' in presidential campaign, not racist". "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren, www.foxnews.com. May 17, 2012.

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• I hate the opera. I think I must have a tin ear. No matter how hard I concentrate it still sounds like a bunch of Italian chefs screaming risotto recipes at each other.

  Aristotle Onassis

  Hate, Thinking, Opera

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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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