Italian Poet Quotes

Once thou art wed, no longer canst thou be
Lord of thyself.

The most dangerous aspect of present-day life is the dissolution of the feeling of individual responsibility. Mass solitude has done away with any difference between the internal and the external, between the intellectual and the physical.

Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale
To joyously savor one single instant of initial life I seek an innocent country

Giuseppe Ungaretti
Giuseppe Ungaretti
Your tiny hand is frozen, let me warm it in mine.

Don't forget that even our most obscene vices nearly always bear the seal of sullen greatness.

Someone might object, "But you do not express yourself like Cicero". What of it? I am not Cicero. But I think I express my own self.

Yet will the loved one's gentle smile suffice
To ope the door of Paradise,
And turn to joy our dark and cruel lot.

All books avoid, for they
Are the disgrace of our humanity,
And the assassins of the human race.
Mark well my words: the true
Philosophy consists in growing fat.

All papas and mammas have exactly that sort of sight which distinguishes objects at a distance clearly, while they need spectacles to see those under their very noses.

It was only my second night in Africa, yet something had begun to grow inside me which I could not stop, as if my childhood dreams had finally found the place where they could materialize. I had arrived where I was always meant to be. I did not know how it could be practically achieved, but I was certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was here that I wanted to live.

Last Words:
What a great artist dies with me!

Nero
Nero
It has always been more difficult for a man to keep than to get; for, in the one case, fortune aids, which often assists injustice; but, in the other case, sense is required. Therefore, we often see a person deficient in cleverness rise to wealth; and then, from want of sense, roll head over heels to the bottom.

Since the journey is a metaphor - the most ambiguous and seductive of metaphors, we tell ourselves - it can also be born of immobility. There is no need to drag our bodies around so much, all dressed up. It's hot, there are flies, diseases. It is enough to close our eyes, seated on a chair in the shade, to float on the waves of imagination. Isn't that what books are there for?

Dacia Maraini
Dacia Maraini