Last Updated on 9th October 2022 by Sophie Nadeau
“You may have the universe if I may have Italy”. It’s a well-versed quote which many have scribbled on walls, adorned their clothes with, or added to their Instagram captions. And if all roads lead to Rome, then you’ll probably want to know some more sayings about Italy! Here are some magical quotes about Italy which will make you want to visit the land of pasta, pizza, and wine ASAP:
Italy is a boot-shaped country in Southern Europe that is most famous for its food and history, particularly that of the Renaissance period. The capital city of Italy is Rome, which in turn is well-known for its foodie scene (particularly pizza and pasta) and as being home to Vatican City, which is one of the smallest countries in Europe.
For even more inspiration, be sure to check out our guides on how to spend 2 weeks in Italy, the best hidden gems of Italy, and how to plan a honeymoon in Italy.
“The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.” – George Miller
“In Italy, they add work and life on to food and wine.” – Robin Leach
“You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it’s for the same two things.” “What?” “Love and gelato.” – Jenna Evans Welch
“In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” – Orson Welles
“In Italy, food is an expression of love. It is how you show those around you that you care for them. Having a love for food means you also have a love for those you are preparing it for and for yourself.” – Joe Bastianich
“I think people in Italy live their lives better than we do. It’s an older country, and they’ve learned to celebrate dinner and lunch, whereas we sort of eat as quickly as we can to get through it.” – George Clooney
“As they say in Italy, Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other. The Medici family had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible.” – Mario Batali
“The Creator made Italy by designs from Michelangelo.” – Mark Twain
“I love places that have an incredible history. I love the Italian way of life. I love the food. I love the people. I love the attitudes of Italians.” – Elton John
“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” – Truman Capote (read our full guide to the best things to do in Venice)
“You may have the universe if I may have Italy.” – Giuseppe Verdi
“For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery.” – D.H. Lawrence
“We are all pilgrims who seek Italy.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago.” – Erica Jong
“It’s easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time.” – Philip Dunne
“Open My Heart And You Will See, Engraved Inside Of It, ‘Italy'” – Robert Browning
“Even now I miss Italy dearly, I dream about it every night.” – Eila Hiltunen, sculptor
“Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.” – Bertrand Russell
“In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence, you learn poise.” – Virgil Thomson
“To Rome, for everything.” – Miguel de Cervantes
“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go”. – Truman Capote (discover more quotes about Venice here)
“I spent a college semester in a small town in Italy – and that is where I truly tasted food for the first time.” – Alton Brown
“When life gives you twists and turns, chique yourself up in Italy!” – Barbara Conelli
“Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.” – Anna Akhmatova
“A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.” – Samuel Johnson, composer of the Dictionary. Today, his former home can be found in Gough square and is easily one of the best secret spots in London.
“Rome, the city of visible history.” – George Eliot
“Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine.” – Henry James
“Rome is not like any other city. It’s a majestic museum, a living room to tiptoe through.” – Alberto Sordi
“Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome.” – Robert de Niro
“I love the simplicity, the ingredients, the culture, the history and the seasonality of Italian cuisine. In Italy people do not travel. They cook the way grandma did, using fresh ingredients and what is available in season.” – Anne Burrell
“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.” – Thomas Mann
“Italy will never be a normal country. Because Italy is Italy. If we were a normal country, we wouldn’t have Rome. We wouldn’t have Florence. We wouldn’t have the marvel that is Venice.” – Matteo Renzi
“Everything you see I owe to pasta.” – Sophia Loren
“Italy and the spring and the first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.” – Bertrand Russell
“You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they sat, it’s for the same two things.” “What?” “Love and gelato.” – Jenna Evans Welch in her book, Love and Gelato
“Methinks I will not die quite happy without having seen something of that Rome!” – Sir Walter Scott
“How beautiful is sunset, when the glow of Heaven descends upon a land like thee, Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!” – Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building after seeing Italy.” -Fanny Burney
“As they say in Italy, Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other. The Medici family had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible.” – Mario Batali
“Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity or at least is reminiscent of childhood.” – Alexander Herzen
“Italy will always have the best food.” – Diane von Furstenberg
“One of the great joys of traveling through Italy is discovering firsthand that it is, indeed, a dream destination.” – Debra Levinson
“I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure’s rise As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O’er the far times, when many a subject land Look’d to the winged Lion’s marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.” -Lord Byron, Childe Harold
“Watching Italians eat (especially men, I have to say) is a form of tourism the books don’t tell you about. They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sounds of acute appreciation. It’s fairly sexy. Of course I don’t know how these men behave at home, if they help with the cooking or are vain and boorish and mistreat their wives. I realized Mediterranean cultures have their issues. Fine, don’t burst my bubble. I didn’t want to marry these guys, I just wanted to watch.” – Barbara Kingsolver
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