Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyts New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Italy
For wheresoer I turn my ravished eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise; Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground. AddisonLetter from Italy.
Italy, my Italy! Queen Marys saying serves for me (When fortunes malice Lost her Calais) Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, Italy. Robert BrowningMen and Women. De Gustibus.
Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte, Dono infelice di bellezza, ond hai Funesta dote dinfiniti guai Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte. Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughd by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. Vicenzo FilicajaItalia. English rendering by ByronChilde Harold. Canto IV. St. 42.
LItalie est un nom geographique. Italy is only a geographical expression. Prince Metternich to Lord Palmerston, 1847. See his Letter to Count Prokesch-Osten, Nov. 19, 1819. Correspondence of Prokesch. II. 313. First used by Metternich in his Memorandum to the Great Powers, Aug. 2, 1814.
Gli Italiani tutti ladroni. All Italians are plunderers. Napoleon Bonaparte when in Italy. Non tutti, ma buona parte. Not all but a good part.Response by a lady who overheard him. See ColeridgeBiographia Literaria. Satyranes Letters. No. 2. (Ed. 1870). I Francesci son tutti ladriNon tuttima buona parte.Pasquin when the French were in possession of Rome. See Catherine Taylors Letters from Italy. Vol. I. P. 239. (Ed. 1840). Quoted also by Charlotte EatonRome in the Nineteenth Cent. Vol. II. P. 120. (Ed. 1852).
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome. PoeHelen.