Indro Montanelli Quotes (33 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

cited in " Non vince la scienza http://www.repubblica.it/2008/10/sezioni/cronaca/eluana-eutanasia-3/comm-veronesi/comm-veronesi.html" by Umberto Veronesi, in la Repubblica, 14 November 2008. 2000s - 2010s

“Certainly, for a newspaper director, to have within arm's reach a Travaglio, about whom every starring actor, supporting cast and extra of Italian political life he is ready upon cold request to provide an inquiry brief refined in the most minute details is a nice comfort. But also a bit unsettling. The day I asked him if in that archive, into which no one is allowed to stick their nose, there were a brief with my name on it, Marco changed the subject.”

Indro Montanelli

Preface to Il Pollaio delle Libertà by Marco Travaglio, Vallecchi, 1995.
1950s - 1990s

“I do not want to suffer, I do not have a christian concept of suffering. They tell us that suffering elevates the spirit; no suffering is something that hurts and that's all, it elevates nothing. And therefore I fear suffering. Because with regards to death, I, who in everything believe to be moderate, am absolutely radical. If we have a right to life, we have also a right to death. It rests on us, and it must be regognized the right to choose the when and the how of our own death.”

Indro Montanelli

cited in la Repubblica, 25 April 2002.
2000s - 2010s

“I know many crooks and they never preach, but I don't know anyone who preaches that isn't a crook also.”

Indro Montanelli

beppegrillo.it, 7 may, 2008.
2000s - 2010s

“When a nice quote comes to mind, I always attribute it to Montesquieu, or to La Rochefoucauld. They've never complained.”

Indro Montanelli

Quando mi viene in mente un bell'aforisma, lo metto in conto a Montesquieu, od a La Rochefoucauld. Non si sono mai lamentati. cited in Mai dette, ma le ripetiamo sempre Ecco le frasi fantasma della storia http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/mai-dette-ripetiamo-sempre-ecco-frasi-fantasma-storia.html by Luigi Mascheroni, in il Giornale, 21 March 2009, p. 22. 2000s - 2010s

“Pertini has interpreted as their best the worst about Italians.”

Indro Montanelli

cited in Franco Fontanini, Piccola antologia del pensiero breve, Liguori Editore, 2007, p. 12.
2000s - 2010s

“In Italy there is a fringe of imbeciles who believe they can resurrect communism. Bury the corpse of Marxism is not easy, because for many people it means to deny the entire existence. Of course Bertinotti is not of these: he knows nothing about Marxism, he doesn't care anything, he is a little clown, an Italian populist who stirs in the streets tides of poor devils and speaks again of the working masses, who sees only him.”

Indro Montanelli

Corriere della Sera, 19 December 1997.
1950s - 1990s

“The American death penalty exists and it withstands in America because it was a basic and constitutive element of its birth and development. Of the famous 102 «Wandering Fathers» that for first they disembarked from the «Mayflower» in that Continent not to ransack the wealths as they made Spaniards and Portuguese in Mexico and in America of the South, but to build you a new and free society, around the two bystanders they were leftovers of jail that ran away the Justice and the jails of Europe, and a bystander they were men that liberty looked for, and above all that religious. The first ones had in pocket the gun, the seconds the Bible, but in his/her Calvinist version that of the retaliation, based on the conception of a God executioner that demands the death of whom without correct motive it gives it.”

Indro Montanelli

Corriere della Sera, 9 July 2000.
2000s - 2010s

“No, Travaglio kills no one. With a knife. He uses a weapon much more refined and unendictable in court: the archive.”

Indro Montanelli

cited in Marco Travaglio, Montanelli e il Cavaliere: storia di un grande e di un piccolo uomo.
2000s - 2010s

“[Addressed to Berlusconi who wanted to impose himself on the editorial style of "Il Giornale"] In the art of entrepeneurship, you are certainly a genius, and I an asshole. But in the art of argument the genius is me, and you the asshole.”

Indro Montanelli

cited in Marco Travaglio, Montanelli e il Cavaliere: storia di un grande e di un piccolo uomo.
2000s - 2010s

“Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith.”

Indro Montanelli

Controcorrente, 1974-1986.
1950s - 1990s

“[…] the love of power excludes all others.”

Indro Montanelli

I protagonisti, Rizzoli, 1976, p. 265.
1950s - 1990s

“Fascism rewarded jackasses in uniform. Democracy gives privileges to those in sports' gear. In Italy, political regimes come to pass. Jackasses remain. Triumphant.”

Indro Montanelli

Controcorrente, 1974 – 1986.
1950s - 1990s

“Let not the usual abstract arguments be brought to me, like the sacredness of life: no one contests the right of everyone to arrange their own life, I don't see why their own death has to be contested.”

Indro Montanelli

cited in Enrico Bonerandi, Montanelli: pronto a morire http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2000/12/13/montanelli-pronto-morire.html, in la Repubblica, 13 December 2000, p. 36. 2000s - 2010s

“Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.”

Indro Montanelli

Oggi, 11 October 2000.
2000s - 2010s

“Men do not know how to appreciate or measure luck except that of others. Their own never.”

Indro Montanelli

History of the Greeks, Rizzoli 1959.
1950s - 1990s

“A real writer […] doesn't look up to any other writer but himself.”

Indro Montanelli

I protagonisti, Rizzoli, 1976, p. 207.
1950s - 1990s

“Italian husbands, in order to buy their wives a fur coat, spend more than all their European collegues.”

Indro Montanelli

Controcorrente, 1974-1986.
1950s - 1990s

“Also we Italians have something to Elvis Presley: to offer one of the rare occasions when we prefer to be Italian rather than American.”

Indro Montanelli

il Giornale nuovo, 20 August 1977, p. 1.
1950s - 1990s

“[Gladio] had been founded in almost all the Countries that belonged to the Nato, and for Nato's wish, aware that its European partners would not have been able to withstand the attack of a much power armed as the Soviet union: they would have to wait for the rescue, the intervention of America. It's demonstrated by the fact that when this plan was revealed, no other country found nothing to say. Only we Italians – the usual idiots and fools novelists – made it the subject of scandal and pretext of «Crime fictions» that still find credit, as this letter shows. I also feel shocked, and bit offended. But just because no one has called me for adherence to Gladio: I would have given it with enthusiasm.”

Indro Montanelli

Corriere della Sera http://web.archive.org/web/20151108234947/http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/1997/luglio/06/Caso_Moro_non_piu_nulla_co_0_9707062761.shtml, 7 June 1997, p. 35. 1950s - 1990s

“The more I deepen the topic of regions (I'm in Milan for this reason), the more I am dismayed by having to write about it. It doesn't take much to understand that what these Lombard regionalists are pursuing, knowingly or unknowingly, is a Cisalpine secessionist plan. And, once they've had the instrument, they'll manage to realize it. There's a reason why Bassetti already no longer speaks of a "Lombardy region", but of a "Padania region", of which the rest of Italy would be but an appendix. If they'll succeed (and they will succeed), farewell Risorgimento! It wasn't but a fiction, agreed, and in practice it has failed. But with what will we replace it?”

Indro Montanelli

Diari 1957-78, ed. Rizzoli, 26 September 1972.
1950s - 1990s

“Parties had eventually put the wrong man in the wrong place. De Mita was not without merits. However, he completely lacked any relating to government. This was obvious while he served as Minister, and was not accomplishing more than a little: and that little bit, usually, would have been better not having been accomplished.”

Indro Montanelli

L'Italia del Novecento, p. 536.
1950s - 1990s