Top 15 Indro Montanelli Quotes

I fly to Luxembourg on Berlusconi's usual twin engine, who accompanies us, glad to exhibit himself and exhibit his status in an international ceremony. The gold medal (but is it really gold?) is given to me by Gaston Thorn, head of the Luxembourg government. Berlusconi fills his notebook with addresses: of all the V.I.P.'s that he has met. He's a true climber that takes advantage of everything and throws nothing away.

This isn't a romanticized biography. It's a biography period. If here and there it resembles a romantic novel, the credit is only Garibaldi's, not his portrayers.

Pertini has interpreted as their best the worst about Italians.

Storia d'Italia, volume l'Italia degli anni di fango.

It isn't necessary to be socialists in order to love Pertini. Whatever he says or does, smells of cleanliness, of loyalty and of sincerity.

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

The only advice that I'm in the mood to give - and that I give regularly - to young people is this: fight for what you believe in. You will lose, just like I have lost, all the battles. You may only win one. The one that you engage every morning, in front of the mirror.

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.

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

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

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

Il testimone, p. 386.

[A certain Italian judge] declared in an interview that at night he has no need for sleeping pills since, with regards to the Law, his conscience is at peace. We believe him without further ado. But if he asked himself the same question with regards to Justice, I ask myself if his sleep would be equally untroubled. And we are after all aware that he'll never ask himself this question, and on the contrary it would seem to him totally odd. Because, for an Italian judge, the Law and Justice have nothing to do with each other.

Depression is a democratic sickness: it afflicts everyone.

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