Italy

Explore 329 quotes by people from Italy

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Seneca the Younger

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Topic

Acquisitiveness Desire Materialism Attachment (Buddhism)

Author

Seneca the Younger

Source

Epistles (Seneca the Younger)

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

65 60s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Seneca the Younger. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium [Moral Letters to Lucilius]. c. 65 AD.

Current Citation

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters on Ethics, translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

You can take comfort in the likelihood that what is now making you miserable will also pass away.

Boethius

The Consolation of Philosophy

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Topic

Things get better Hard times

Author

Boethius

Source

The Consolation of Philosophy

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

Latin

Time

523 520s 6th century

Era

Middle Ages

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Boethius. De Consolatione Philosophiae [On the Consolation of Philosophy]. 524, bk. 2, poem 3.

Current Citation

Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy, translated by Victor Watts. Penguin Classics, 1999, bk. 2, poem 3.

What a woman says to her ardent lover should be written in wind and running water.

Catullus

Carmina

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Topic

Trustworthiness of women

Author

Catullus

Source

Carmina

Medium

Poem

Language

Latin

Time

54 BC 50s BC 1st century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. Carmina. c. 1481, no. 70, l. 3.

Current Citation

Cattulus, Gaius Valerius. The Poems of Catullus, translated by Guy Lee. Oxford University Press, 2009, no. 70, l. 3.

He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns, not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds.

Giordano Bruno

More information about this quote

Topic

God and the universe The universe Multiverse theory The infinite God

Author

Giordano Bruno

Source

On the Infinite Universe and Worlds

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

Italian

Time

1584 1580s 16th century

Era

European Renaissance

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Bruno, Giordano. De l'infinito, universo e mondi [On the Infinite Universe and Worlds]. London, 1584.

Marriage is a sacrament which I detest... Because it is the tomb of love.

Giacomo Casanova

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Topic

Fading love Love Marriage

Author

Giacomo Casanova

Source

Histoire de Ma Vie

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

Italian

Time

1838 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Casanova, Giacomo. Histoire de ma vie [History of My Life]. Paris, c. 1838.

Current Citation

Casanova, Giacomo. History of My Life, vols. 9 & 10, translated by Willard R. Trask. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?

Seneca the Younger

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Topic

Genocide Anti-war War

Author

Seneca the Younger

Source

Epistles (Seneca the Younger)

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

65 60s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Seneca the Younger. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium [Moral Letters to Lucilius]. c. 65 AD.

Current Citation

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters on Ethics, translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.

Seneca the Younger

More information about this quote

Topic

Simple living Materialism

Author

Seneca the Younger

Source

Moral Letters to Lucilius

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

65 60s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 0

Original Citation

Seneca the Younger. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium [Moral Letters to Lucilius]. c. 65 AD.

Current Citation

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters on Ethics, translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

The new philosophy proceeds from the world, the book of God.

Tommaso Campanella

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Topic

Science and religion

Author

Tommaso Campanella

Source

The Defense of Galileo

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

Latin

Time

1622 1620s 17th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Campanella, Tommaso. Apologia pro Galileo [In Defense of Galileo]. Frankfurt am Main: Gottfried Tampach, 1622, ch. 4.

Current Citation

Campanella, Thomas. Defense of Galileo, translated by Richard J. Blackwell. University of Notre Dame Press, 1994, ch. 4.

It was divine nature which gave us the country, and man's skill that built the cities.

Marcus Terentius Varro

More information about this quote

Topic

Rural vs. urban Cities

Author

Marcus Terentius Varro

Source

On Agriculture (Varro)

Language

Latin

Time

27 BC 20s BC 1st century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Varro, Marcus Terentius. Rerum rusticarum libri tres [Three Books on Agriculture]. 1st century BC, bk. 3.

I would earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargons now current everywhere... Of the jargon, namely about the "rights" of women, which urges women to do all that men do... Merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon which urges women to do nothing that men do, merely because they are women... Woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is... Without attending to either of these cries.

Florence Nightingale

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Topic

Women Men and women Women's rights

Author

Florence Nightingale

Source

Notes on Nursing

Medium

Treatise

Language

English

Time

1860 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not. London: Harrison and Sons, 1859.

Current Citation

Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not. Dover Publications, 1969.

Those new regions which we found and explored with the fleet... We may rightly call a New World... A continent more densely peopled and abounding in animals other than our Europe or Asia or Africa; and, in addition, a climate milder than in any other region known to us.

Amerigo Vespucci

On the discovery of America.

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Topic

The new world Discovery of America

Author

Amerigo Vespucci

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

1503 1500s 16th century

Era

Age of Exploration

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Vespucci, Amerigo. Letter to Lorenzo Pietro Francesco di Medici. c. Mar. 1503.

Current Citation

Vespucci, Amerigo. "From Mundus Novus (Letter on His Third Voyage to Lorenzo Pietro Francesco di Medici, 1503)." Early American Writing, edited by Giles Gunn. Penguin Classics, 1994.

Happy the man who, far away from business, like the race of men of old, tills his ancestral fields with his own oxen, unbound by any interest to pay.

Horace

Epodes

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Topic

Farming Agriculture Simple living

Author

Horace

Source

Epodes

Medium

Poem

Language

Latin

Time

30 BC 30s BC 1st century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Horace. Epodi [Epodes]. 30 BC, epode 2, l. 1.

Current Citation

Horace. "Epodes." The Complete Odes and Epodes, translated by David West. Oxford University Press, 2008, epode 2, l. 1.

We are continually dying; I while I am writing these words, you while you are reading them, others when they hear them or fail to hear them. I shall be dying when you read this, you die while I write, we both are dying, we all are dying, we are dying forever.

Petrarch

More information about this quote

Topic

Dying Nature of death Death

Author

Petrarch

Source

Letters on Familiar Matters

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

1360 1360s 14th century

Era

European Renaissance

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Petrarch. Letter to Philippe, Biship of Cavaillon. c. 1360.

Current Citation

Petrarch. "To Philippe, Bishop of Cavaillon, concerning the incredible flight of time." Letters of Familiar Matters (Rerum Familiarum Libri), translated by Aldo Bernardo. Vol. 3, Italica Press, 2008.

All art is biographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.

Federico Fellini

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of art Art

Author

Federico Fellini

Source

The Atlantic

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1965 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Fellini, Federico. Quoted in The Atlantic, Dec. 1965.

Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

Seneca the Younger

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Topic

Length of life What we can control

Author

Seneca the Younger

Source

Epistles (Seneca the Younger)

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

65 60s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Seneca the Younger. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium [Moral Letters to Lucilius]. c. 65 AD.

Current Citation

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters on Ethics, translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose

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Topic

Learning Wisdom

Speaker

William

Author

Umberto Eco

Source

The Name of the Rose

Medium

Novel

Language

Italian

Time

1980 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Eco, Umberto. Il nome della rosa [The Name of the Rose]. Bompiani, 1980.

Current Citation

Eco, Humberto. The Name of the Rose, translated by William Weaver. HarperVia, 2014.

We never have despair without some small hope.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

More information about this quote

Topic

Hope Hopelessness and despair

Author

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Source

The Religion of My Time

Medium

Poem

Language

Italian

Time

1961 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Pasolini, Pier Paolo. "Un'Appendice alla 'Religione': Una luce [An Appendix to 'Religion': The Light]." La religione del mio tempo. [The Religion of My Time]. c. 1961.

Current Citation

Pasolini, Pier Paolo. "Appendice alla 'Religione': Una Luce/Appendix to 'The Religion of My Time: A Light." The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolinia: A Bilingual Edition, edited and translated by Stephen Sartarelli. University of Chicago Press, 2015.

What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss.

Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose

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Topic

Dangers of love Nature of love Love

Author

Umberto Eco

Source

The Name of the Rose

Medium

Novel

Language

Italian

Time

1980 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Eco, Umberto. Il nome della rosa [The Name of the Rose]. Bompiani, 1980.

Current Citation

Eco, Humberto. The Name of the Rose, translated by William Weaver. HarperVia, 2014.

The contours of its legs are extremely beautiful, along with the splendid articulations and grace of its flanks, a sweeter and more graceful pose has never been seen that could equal it, nor have feet, hands, and a head ever been produced which so well match all the other parts of the body in skill of workmanship or design. To be sure, anyone who sees the statue need not be concerned with seeing any other piece of sculpture done in our times or in any other period by any other artist.

Giorgio Vasari

The Lives of the Artist

On Michelangelo's David.

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Topic

Sculpture

Author

Giorgio Vasari

Source

The Lives of the Artist

Language

Italian

Time

1550 1550s 16th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori [Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects]. Florence, c. 1568.

Current Citation

Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists, translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella. Oxford University Press, 2008, pt. 3.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Italo Calvino

More information about this quote

Topic

Power of literature Books

Author

Italo Calvino

Source

L'Espresso

Medium

Magazine

Language

Italian

Time

1981 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Calvino, Italo. "Perché leggere i classici? [Why Read the Classics?]" L'Espresso, 28 June 1981.

Current Citation

Calvino, Italo. Why Read the Classics? Penguin Classics, 2009.