191 quotes found
"Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough. (26 July 2016, speech to Global Investment Conference in London)"
"In Greece, the position at the outset was particularly difficult, so now we have to be particularly patient with the country. That's no surprise."
"It is too early to assess the policies of the new German government. I can only say that the crisis has shown that the monetary union is incomplete and that the weaknesses need to be remedied. Germany helps the euro best by further strengthening its competitiveness and promoting growth."
"One needs a complex package of policies and, as we always stress, structural reforms come first, because many of the problems of the euro area are structural. And I'm sure that's also the biggest fear for the Governing Council as a whole. We discussed the possibility of negative deposit rates, but our objective is maintaining price stability."
"The crisis has not been overcome, but there are many encouraging signs. The economy is recovering in many countries, the imbalances in European trade are declining and the budget deficits in the monetary union are falling."
"The signals from the monetary analysis confirm the picture of subdued underlying price pressures in the euro area over the medium term."
"... "the Continent's traditional social contract" - perhaps its major contribution to contemporary civilization - "is obsolete" and must be dismantled."
"(Italian language) L'appello a non vaccinarsi è un appello a morire sostanzialmente - non ti vaccini, ti ammali, muori - oppure fai morire - non ti vaccini, ti ammali, contagi lui lei muore -, questo è."
"The gap between countries that embrace innovation and those that hesitate, Draghi explained, will widen significantly in the coming years, which is why Europe is now facing a moment of truth: over the last twenty years, we have gone from being a continent that welcomed new technologies, narrowing the gap with the United States, to one that has progressively placed barriers to innovation and its adoption. We have already seen this in the first phase of the digital revolution, when European productivity growth fell to about half the US rate, with almost all of the divergence coming from the technology sector. Now this pattern is repeating itself with the artificial intelligence revolution. Last year, the United States produced 40 major fundamental models, China 15, and the European Union only three. The same pattern can be observed in many other frontier technologies, from biotechnology to advanced materials to nuclear fusion. [...] Economic history indicates that mass unemployment is not the most likely outcome. Previous technological revolutions suggest this."
"ECB [European Central Bank] President Mario Draghi’s famous promise to do ‘whatever it takes’ to preserve the eurozone was a masterly move to buy time. But monetary policy cannot solve the currency union’s problems."
"Our friendship goes back many decades, to when we shared a common plane. Over the years, over the decades, I have had enormous respect for Mr. Draghi. He has had an extraordinary capacity for intellectual analysis of issues that focused on the common good and not just the immediate. [He is the] symbol of a generational challenge. [He has carried out] extraordinarily complicated tasks because it was believed, and it turned out to be correct, that he would analyze the problems and not approach them from a biased position. [He is] a man with a unique ability to analyze situations and contribute to their solution."
"The doctrines held by the early Fathers of the Church on the nature of property are perfectly uniform. They almost all admit that wealth is the fruit of usurpation, and, considering the rich man as holding the patrimony of the poor, maintain that riches should only serve to relieve the indigent; to refuse to assist the poor is, consequently, worse than to rob the rich. According to the fathers, all was in common in the beginning: the distinctions mine and thine, in other words, individual property, came with the spirit of evil."
"The poverty-stricken rural population rose up against their despoilers; they burnt down the castles of the nobles, and swore that they would leave nothing to be seen upon the land but the cabins of the poor. The rich middle-class seemed at first to side with them, and at Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm the peasants were encouraged, aided, and provided for. However, the bourgeoisie soon grew alarmed at the spreading of the insurrection, and made common cause with the nobles in smothering the revolt in the rural districts. Luther, who was then at the apex of his power, condemned the rising in the name of religion, and proclaimed the servitude of the people as holy and legitimate. "You seek," wrote he, "to free your persons and your goods. You desire the power and the goods of this earth. You will suffer no wrong. The Gospel, on the contrary, has no care for such things, and makes exterior life consist in suffering, supporting injustice, the cross, patience, and contempt of life, as of all the things of this world. To suffer! To suffer! The cross! The cross! Behold what Christ teaches!" Were not these teachings, given in the name of the faith to a famishing people in revolt against the tyranny and avidity of the ruling aristocracy, fatal to the future of the peasant masses, whose very sufferings were thus legitimised in the name of the religion that should have come to their aid?"
"Luther did not consider the claims of the peasants as in the least unjust; indeed, he admitted that they were "not contrary to natural law or to equity". But, unconscious apostle of bourgeois interests, he immediately added: "No one is judge in his own cause, and the faults committed by authority cannot excuse rebellion.""
"Our debate has themes of great significance: the fight against poverty, quality education as a source of personal and social opportunity, and action for the protection of the environment. These themes are held together by the common thread of inclusion, with a human individual at the center of the political action of this organization and of every member state. An “inclusive humanism”, expression I love to refer to, which recognized the equal dignity of each individual, which is a real achievement of modernity. Italy openly invokes an effective multilateralism, because only collective and coordinated action can help us face the multiple challenges before us. We need a multilateral concept based on cooperation, transparency and the principle of equality between states, aimed at correcting the dysfunctional aspects of globalization. But the inspiring source, the polar star that must guide this multilateralism, is respect for the human person, starting with the recognition of his or her dignity, personal and social. Without this foundation, multilateralism becomes a mere technique, which can be useful but cannot expect to guide solid choice and values."
"Long live the republic, down with all tyrants!"
"[We desire] to imbue all sections of society, both civil and religious, with the ideal of liberty. We desire economic liberty, we desire administrative liberty, we desire full and absolute liberty of conscience. We desire all the political liberties that are compatible with the maintenance of public order. And therefore, as a necessary consequence of this order of things, we deem it essential...that the principle of liberty should be applied to the relations between Church and State."
"Tell that good friend of ours that our trade laws are the most liberal of the continent; that for ten years we have been practising the maxims that he exhorts us to adopt; tell him that he preaches to the converted."
"In truth his policy was directed to the greatness of the State, not to the liberty of the people; he sought the greatest amount of power consistent with the maintenance of the monarchical constitution, not the greatest amount of freedom compatible with national independence. To this question of State, this ragion di stato, everything else but the forms of the government was to be sacrificed."
"[Cavour is] one of those domineering, grasping men [who has] a radical contempt for all law but their own will. [He] is a Voltairian in his philosophy and wholly unscrupulous in his words and actions – a fact which should not be regarded as a fault in him, for were it otherwise he would be wholly unfit for and incapable of the government of an Italian people. He loves money and has made a large private fortune while attending to the affairs of his nation, and he dearly loves power. Of this he can never bring himself to partake with any other: nor can he brook the least opposition from any quarter great or small."
"Cavour, the only truly European figure of the Risorgimento. Cavour shows no trace of the congenital narrowness which delayed the intellectual emancipation of the agricultural classes. Sprung though he was from the small landed nobility, he succeeded in ridding himself completely of the intellectual attitude of his class, and attaining a wholly modern conception of the economic functions of Society. His scientific education was in the school of Manchester Liberalism. The studies which he published before 1848 on the Anti-Corn-Law League and the Irish question are as good as anything in the literature of the day; unlike the rhetorical exercises of a Bastiat, they reveal a sense of reality and a preference for facts over doctrinal formulae. To the Manchester School Cavour owed not only a general view of the laws governing exchange, but also something deeper and more intimate, not to be expressed in abstract scientific terms: a consciousness of the expansive power of modern industrial Society, and a confidence in individual initiative and enterprise, destroying old habits in order to launch out on a new path fraught with hopes and dangers."
"The genius of modern business is present in Cavour's programme of railway construction, out of all proportion with the modest interests of the little Piedmontese kingdom of the time, but commensurate with the needs of the future. The same outlook, the same vital lack of equilibrium between the present and the future, is revealed by his participation in the Crimean War. And Cavour's internal policy, which won the co-operation of conservatives and revolutionaries, Moderates and democrats, however hostile to each other, in a single national scheme, and fitted admirably in its turn into a complicated international policy, gives the full measure of the powers of this genius. In the work of Cavour we feel for the first time in Italian history the living spirit of the modern Liberal State; the State which feeds upon mighty conflicts, which reconciles violent passions any one of which in isolation would be destructive and disastrous, while each, in its union with the others, is an element of life and progress."
"The death of Cavour is an immense event! ... He was a thorough Italian statesman of the middle ages; most fertile in device, & utterly unscrupulous; an almost unrivalled union of subtelty & vigor."
"These [the Masonic and Protestant nations] had the objective - apart from personal enrichment and power - an ideological objective for which they were aided by the liberal Freemasons all over the world, was to transform Rome from caput mundi to caput Italiae, for it is evident that Rome as the capital of Italy had ceased to be Rome. In fact, this is said in a way, at a time more or less contemporaneous with the events, Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was a genius, describes this feat of Cavour who had succeeded in transforming a spiritual power like Italy into a colony, and we since then are colonies of whoever has more power moment by moment: it may be England, it may be France, it may be Germany, always colonies we are."
"For this Fatherland of his, he was ready, as are all great statesmen and founders of nations, to sell his soul; on the altar of this Fatherland of his he would not have hesitated for a single moment to burn all his sentiments, all his interests, all his preconceived ideas, even the Statuto, if it had been necessary, even religion, if it had been shown to be incompatible with the State in which the Fatherland was incarnate."
"Two men at this moment divide the attention of Europe, the Emperor Napoleon and Count Cavour. I back Count Cavour."
"Cavour has all the prudence and all the imprudence of the true statesman."
"We who have seen Italia in the throes, Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now, Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough, All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those Who blew the breath of life into her frame: Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three: Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her free ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim."
"[The] greatest, Cavour, bold, persistent, far-sighted, subtle, with the true quality of the statesman, as Manzoni said of him, “the prudences and the imprudences,” a prince among all the political calculators whom Mazzini most profoundly distrusted and abhorred."
"In truth he was a high-minded political idealist, without a touch of the narrow-minded doctrinaire; he was no evangelist and no pedant; a successful practitioner of expediency, but no empiric. He never professed himself a democrat in any strict sense, and he never sympathised with any of the schools that he always called "the exaggerated." He used words on government by state of siege, and a free church in a free state, which were accepted as orthodox liberal formulae in most of Europe."
"Italy, both present and future, will regard him as one of the most distinguished patriots who have adorned the history of any country. She will owe to him as great obligations as any nation ever owed to any of its members."
"Acton had an abhorrence of Carlylean hero-worship, and he did less than justice to Cavour's regeneration of Italy. His criticism of a man who for many years of his too brief life was engrossed in a desperate struggle for national independence is cold and dry. He cannot conceal either the scanty resources which Cavour had at his disposal, or the magnitude of the results which those resources were made to achieve. But, true to his favourite subject, he analysed the Minister's conception of liberty, and found it wanting. It was liberty for the State, not liberty for the individual, nor for the Church. Yet Cavour's cherished ideal was “a free Church in a free State,” and he would probably have replied that from the purely individual point of view Piedmont might well challenge comparison with the Austrian provinces of Italy or the States of the Church. If Cavour's life had been spared, we may be sure that he would, as his dying words about Naples imply, have governed in accordance with the principles of constitutional freedom."
"Count Cavour holds far too great a place in the history of our time to permit us to pass over his death in silence. Short as was his public career, he was the most remarkable man of our generation, and his influence will probably be felt longer and more widely than that of any living being."
"Far from being a reed painted to look like iron, he was an iron rod painted to look like a reed."
"All the enlightened thinkers of the world felt the blow as a common loss to the great community of liberty; the Puritans in England lamented: a prince has fallen in Israel."
"Cavour had trained himself—for no one was his teacher—in what was then the British school of politics. Passionate Italian as he was, his political and economic ideas were based on acute observations made in England, and on a close study of the work of Grey and Peel. Believing in civil and religious freedom to a degree unusual among Continental statesmen of any party, he regarded freely elected Parliaments as the essential organ of government, and force as no remedy, except to expel the stranger and the despot. Any fool, he said, could govern by martial law. According to him, it was the business of a statesman to govern by Parliament, not indeed obeying every behest of ignorant partisans and corrupt interests, but persuading the country and the Chamber to take the right course, by weight of the authority due to wisdom, knowledge and experience. This ideal, seldom realised in any country, was the actual method by which Cavour governed Piedmont in the fifties. If he had lived to govern all Italy in the same manner during the sixties and seventies, the country which he created would have avoided many misfortunes besides those of Custoza, Lissa, and Mentana. And if then the example of Cavour had been preferred to that of Bismarck as the model for the patriots and statesmen of modern Europe, the whole world would now be a better place than it is."
"[John Bright] enjoyed an interview with Cavour, the only ‘statesman’ whom he really admired between the death of Peel and the Presidency of Lincoln. He noted Cavour's “eye expressing mildness and firmness, and a mouth very pleasing but showing strength. He has the appearance of an intelligent English gentleman farmer, rather than of a fine and subtle Italian.”"
"It is perhaps in the sphere of political institutions that the English have been most original in their native invention, from the time of Magna Charta downwards, or even from the time of William the Conqueror. Certainly it is in politics that the world at large has borrowed most from us; for our literature, though as great as the Greek or Latin, has had relatively little influence outside the English-speaking nations. In politics modern Italy, under Cavour, went to school in England, borrowing thence her constitutional monarchy and parliament."
"He Paolo Sarpi] was one of the two foremost Italian statesmen since the Middle Ages, the other being Cavour."
"Essendo noi uomini medi, le vie di mezzo sono, per noi, le più congeniali."
"As an Italian, I remember the words of our several-times Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, a practicing Catholic. When asked why he was suing those who slandered him rather than forgiving, he answered that when he incited us to turn the other cheek Jesus had surely considered we have only two cheeks. From the “third cheek” on, reacting is not forbidden."
"The truth must be told whatever the cost."
"I take the floor in this world assembly and I feel that everything, except your personal courtesy, is against me: it is above all my qualification as a former enemy, which makes me feel like an accused person, that I have arrived here after the most influential among you have already formulated their conclusions in a long and laborious elaboration.[... ] I have the duty before the conscience of my country and to defend the vitality of my people to speak as an Italian, but I feel the responsibility and the right to speak also as an anti-fascist democrat, as a representative of the new Republic that, harmonising in itself the humanitarian aspirations of Giuseppe Mazzini ([an Italian 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason]), the universalist conceptions of Christianity and the internationalist hopes of the workers, is all directed towards that lasting and reconstructive peace that you seek and towards that cooperation between peoples that you have the task of establishing."
"There are many who only make a small excursion into politics, as amateurs, and others who regard it, and it is for them, as an accessory of secondary importance. But for me, ever since I was a boy, it was my career, my mission."
"Communism as implemented in the USSR is at the antipodes of Nazism: communism is imbued with Christian brotherhood and is therefore anti-racist par excellence, while Nazism and Fascism are essentially and primarily racist. Thus two irreconcilable and opposite phenomena Communism and Nazism."
"When I see that while Hitler and Mussolini persecuted men because of their race, and invented the appalling anti-Jewish legislation that we know, and I see at the same time the Russians made up of 160 races seeking the fusion of these races by overcoming the differences existing between Asia and Europe, this attempt, this effort towards the unification of human consortium, let me say: this is Christian, this is eminently universalistic in the sense of Catholicism."
"It is true that the functioning of economic democracy demands disinterestedness, just as that of political democracy supposes the virtue of character. The work of renewal will fail if in all categories, in all centres, there do not arise selfless men, ready to toil and sacrifice for the common good."
"There is in Italy a fourth Party, which may not have many voters, but which is capable of paralysing and rendering futile all our efforts, by organising the sabotage of loans and the flight of capital, price increases or scandal campaigns. Experience has convinced me that Italy cannot be governed today without attracting into the new formation of government, in one form or another, representatives of this fourth party, of the party of those who have the money and economic strength."
"Those who steal should be put in jail. Unfortunately, this cannot be done because the majority generally protects them. This is the real scandal that newspapers should be reporting on, but they don't, because they are complicit."
"There is a desire for normalization, for a return to an old system of power, one on which the mafia has taken root and built its power. This is what alarms us. These are the facts we denounce. (October 5, 1989)"
"(About the Maastricht Treaty) It is clear that the idea of monetary unification and the free movement of capital without integration of development, budgetary, and social policies is deeply questionable, in crisis, and wrong. It is not only a limitation but also a neoliberal distortion of the process of European unity. (October 29, 1992)"
"Ah-ah! It's unthinkable that Dr. Berlusconi would enter politics. He has to take care of his debts. Stay put, he wouldn't get many votes anyway. This isn't Brazil! (1993)"
"I'll say it again: Amato is a liar and a poor man. He's someone who has to do anything to stay where he is, in his chair. But what can I do? Should I tell him to fuck off?"
"I find it difficult to consider Berlusconi a new man, given that he was one of the closest associates of those who governed Italy in the 1980s. (February 10, 1994)"
"Berlusconi reminds me of Kim Il-sung. (July 13, 1994)"
"Dear Cavaliere, you are like Ceausescu: he too controlled all television in Romania, ha ha! (August 2, 1994)"
"Berlusconi speaks with his typical authoritarian mindset. (September 10, 1994)"
"The PDS will never vote for an antitrust law that is not also voted for by the Polo. (June 12, 1995)"
"I don't care if Berlusconi wants the reform agreement for personal gain."
"I trust Berlusconi: I truly believe he is sincere when he says he wants reforms. (January 23, 1996)"
"(During a visit at Mediaset) I am not here to pay tribute to Berlusconi, but to a company that is a national treasure."
"The delegitimization of judges undermines the democratic order. (April 9, 1996)"
"(About Berlusconi) The fall of his leadership worries me, it could block the process of building a democracy of alternation in Italy. (May 31, 1996)"
"With Berlusconi we must rewrite the rules of the democratic state. (June 3, 1996)"
"Personally, I really like Berlusconi."
"I think it is unfair to attack Di Pietro and the Milan Pool, because these magistrates have done a great service to the country. (July 20, 1997)"
"(About Francesco Cossiga) He is now an old gentleman who enjoys himself. (January 11, 1998)"
"As for Mani Pulite, perhaps we should scale back the significance of this event a little. The investigations in Milan uncovered what everyone already knew. (February 27, 1998)"
"(Referring to Gnutti, Colaninno, and the irresistible rise of the “capitani coraggiosi” (brave captains)) This is a group of well-known entrepreneurs and managers who built Infostrada and Omnitel. Perhaps they are biting off more than they can chew, but that remains to be seen. As things stand, allow me to applaud their courage. (February 19, 1999)"
"Being a P2 member means having participated in an organization, a secret sect, that plotted against the state, and this has been confirmed by Parliament. I share this opinion, which was formed after the Anselmi Commission's investigation."
"I sincerely find it in poor taste to have held this meeting in Teano. The idea of transforming a page of our country's history into a staged event with Maroni in the place of Garibaldi or Victor Emmanuel is an offense to our country."
"Alessandro Natta represented a whole part of my life."
"This self-harm confirms what I have believed for years. The left is inherently evil. Only the existence of the right makes this evil bearable."
"[...] I travel around Italy and the dramatic theme that emerges is the profound suffering and great unease of the people. The country is pervaded by a sad passion. The only one who has painted a smile on his face is Il Cavaliere, but he, as we know, lives in another dimension that has nothing to do with reality."
"I am a reasonable man of the left who seeks to work for the good of the country."
"(Commenting on the crisis of the left-wing government in February 2007) It's a disaster, I'm missing Roma in the Champions League..."
"Berlusconi has an easy game, because we are coming out of a period of political vacuum."
"Nichi Vendola is the only one capable of reviving a modern version of left-wing politics; the others seem too disoriented to me."
"We all agree on moving beyond alliances that are simply everyone ganging up against someone else, which does not mean isolation. Now it is a question of forming alliances based on shared programs."
"It is to be feared that the Church will succumb to the temptation of power and that the political influence of Catholics will be directed toward obtaining legal protection for principles and values such as abortion and fertilization, which will then become laws imposed on everyone, undermining the secular nature of the state."
"The temptation of power is demonic and has always been, throughout the history of the Church, the source of misdeeds for which John Paul II had to ask forgiveness."
"The other day in parliament, we had to fight to defend the rights of severely disabled people to receive assistance worthy of the name. And we were told by that pocket-sized brute, Minister Brunetta, that there are abuses. But if there are abuses, they must be tackled without removing rights. With his virulent campaign against everything public, Brunetta risks attacking essential public services and throwing the baby out with the bathwater."
"One of the reasons why I can come across as difficult even to some left-wing voters is that I always engage in politics, even during election campaigns."
"Italian newspapers are not so much harmful as they are irrelevant. [...] The comparison with foreign newspapers is humiliating. They deal with serious issues, while here we only print nonsense. [...] I find this kind of journalism repugnant."
"Interviewer: “You said in 1995 that the Northern League was an offshoot of the left.” D'Alema: No, of the labor movement, and it was a very accurate analysis. Now that workers are voting for the League, everyone is saying it, but I said it 15 years ago."
"At Piaggio there were real workers, not the kind who called in sick when there was a football match."
"Nichi Vendola can mobilize an electorate that remained on the sidelines in the last elections, but I don't think he can be a viable leader to mobilize a center-left coalition: I wouldn't vote for him."
"We have a democratic form of leadership: leaders can change. Meanwhile, the Italian right wing has been under Berlusconi's imperishable command for sixteen years. However, I would like to point out that this is their anomaly, not ours. Because Berlusconi, who lost the elections twice, in 1996 and 2006, nevertheless remained at the head of the right wing, something that does not happen in any democratic country. And why has Berlusconi, despite losing two elections, remained at the head of the right for almost twenty years? Because he is its 'owner', not its leader. And so this is a completely different concept. Now, if you think that the center-left should also have an owner, you are mistaken. We are a free association."
"Vendola is part of the left wing that has been Prodi's biggest problem since his first government."
"(About Italy) A deeply divided and confused country: the cornerstones of shared national history are being called into question, and public discourse is becoming increasingly vulgar."
"(About the Italian Roman Catholic Church) [...] instead of asking the Church not to interfere, interfere yourselves! If not now, when?"
"Never before has there been such a need to return to working together. Can we really believe that this link between ethics and politics can be rebuilt without the political presence of Italian Catholics? No, that would be an illusion."
"[...] the Catholic contribution to democracy in Italy has been extraordinary. I am convinced that without returning to the myth of political unity among Catholics, it is possible, even in a pluralistic society, to achieve unity among Catholics at the ecclesial level as a fundamental component for the cohesion of the country."
"Storace's right wing enters the government: a sign of dialogue and openness, a good sign for moderates."
"I am not a pacifist. I am for freedom, democracy, and human rights."
"The truth is that this center-right is sailing by sight. The only compass is Berlusconi's personal interests: trials, business, women. Outside of this, there is no longer any politics. There are no choices, no substance. There is nothing."
"We are facing a challenge of constitutional proportions. We must offer a vision for the future reconstruction of the country. The ruins left behind by Berlusconi are enormous: democratic rules have been devastated, principles of legality trampled underfoot, institutions debased. We must put in place a plan to revive the economy and growth after the last ten years wasted by Berlusconism. It is up to us in the PD to do all this, with a proposal that must be addressed first and foremost to the Italian people and that aims to unite the broadest possible democratic coalition."
"The center-right did not lose the elections because of its harsh rhetoric. This is a self-consoling argument: Berlusconi has always used harsh rhetoric, being a populist extremist."
"While political analysts say that Vendola and Casini cannot be mixed, voters are showing that they are happy to mix them together."
"(About the passages about the Rotkopf company's planes) As for the flights, it is absurd to say that I could have paid for a scheduled flight. As a member of parliament, I do not pay for scheduled flights. If I took a ride to attend three rallies instead of one, the savings were for the taxpayers, not me. We used these flights for work reasons because one of our colleagues told us that this option was available. If I had known what had come to light, I would certainly have gone on foot."
"I am in favor of bipolarism; I consider it a value. Despite all its limitations, it has brought about a change in the ruling class, which remains the most significant achievement of the Second Republic. But it has been a crude form of bipolarism, marked by the figure of Berlusconi, and today it needs to be rebuilt on European foundations."
"There is no right-wing liberal movement in Italy. It has always been corporatist and statist, and Berlusconism was no exception."
"Banks do not stand for election, and if they did, they would not have enough votes to govern these days."
"Scalfaro represented one of the most significant experiences of the generation that won democracy against fascism and rebuilt the country, making Italy a modern nation respected throughout the world [...]. I had the opportunity to work with him at various times during my political and institutional career. I remember him as an uncompromising defender of the role and prerogatives of Parliament, as an uncompromising defender of legality and of an ethical vision of political commitment. I remember him as Head of State, a scrupulous and authoritative interpreter of his role as guardian of the Constitution."
"I am a supporter of Zeman. He is a divisive figure with a strong personality, someone who loves beautiful football."
"We must bring politics back to Europe. [...] This separation between democratic politics and decision-making is the tragedy of Europe. [...] Grand narratives also need to become decisions. If, on the other hand, real power is entrusted to technocracies and politics becomes an empty exercise, I believe that democracy is at risk. [...] The real problem is this: it is not about getting rid of politics, but about politics reclaiming its function, which is to guide social processes and change people's lives."
"(About the Italian resistance movement) This party is legitimate because it has roots in national history. [...] We are the heirs of that something that united the country's different democratic traditions ."
"(Concernong the 2012 Democratic Party primary elections) If you follow Matteo Renzi's path, you are headed for political disaster. (November 8, 2012)"
"Letta is just a transitional leader for a temporary government with a specific agenda. He will not be useful a second time around. For the future, I imagine Gianni Cuperlo as secretary of the party and Matteo Renzi at Palazzo Chigi."
"I don't think that Renzi's media success corresponds to extraordinary wealth and novelty of content. (October 29, 2013)"
"Ultimately, what made Fidel Castro hugely popular in Latin America was the fact that he had the courage to do what almost all Latin Americans would like to do but don't have the courage to do: challenge the United States of America. [...] And that made him a star. Then he took advantage of it."
"In this changing world, Europe should be the bearer of a new Atlantic vision. [...] But today, traditional Atlantic policy has become weak: it can become strong again if it becomes a policy for the “whole” Atlantic, and not just the North Atlantic. Because a policy for the whole Atlantic includes Latin America and Africa. This would represent a major opening on the part of Europe towards continents that are emerging as new possible protagonists. We must counterbalance the Asian century and the risk that the epicenter of global growth will shift to the Pacific [...]"
"Stiglitz writes clearly [...] inequality is a political choice [...] the growth of inequality is destroying the foundations of democracy. [...] Either politics, force, [...] is capable of undermining these enormous privileges, or these riches will take over politics, because they condition it."
"It's easy to beat up poor, desperate people. Finding the money to do what they promised is difficult, and they are unable to do so. The government has taken out its frustration on the easy target: the weak."
"I do not participate in the criminalization of the M5S, partly because the neo-fascist drift of the Lega is undoubtedly more worrying."
"(In 2021, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party) I was secretary of the Italian Communist Youth, and I was sent by our party secretary, Enrico Berlinguer, to China at the end of 1978. I remember that we were staying at the Beijing Hotel, which was perhaps the largest building in Beijing at the time. I remember the morning rustle of thousands and thousands of bicycles passing through Tiananmen Square, with the occasional car passing by. In a very short period of time, [China] has made an extraordinary leap towards modernity and progress, which will certainly remain the great historical achievement of the Communist Party. I believe that the most important thing China has managed to do is to lift at least 800 million people out of poverty: this is an extraordinary achievement. No country in the history of humanity has ever managed to achieve such an immense transformation in people's lives, in the sense that today China is a country where the scourge of poverty and hunger has been defeated or reduced to a totally marginal phenomenon; and this is an extraordinary historical achievement. Of course, [...] I also appreciate what has happened in recent years, because there has been a significant commitment to changing the Chinese model of development, especially in the sense of a development that is more compatible with the environment, more respectful of the environment, and more attentive to domestic consumption."
"Bersani is an authoritative leader, determined to build a party and a leadership team, after it was thought for too long that it was enough to demolish what was there to build something new."
"[...] Of course, he hasn't read Mao Tse-tung. Mao often used the example of the chopsticks that the Chinese use to eat: one moves to pick up the food, but the other remains still. The same applies to politics. Tactics, propaganda, and initiatives can change, but strategy cannot; it cannot change every week."
"That generation [of 1968] had an extraordinary, formative experience. Political generations are not only marked by the passing of time, which is ultimately a trivial fact. They are marked by events that characterize their formation. I would say that the great political generation before us was that of the Resistance [...] It is no coincidence that it remained in power for so many years, because it had lived through this extraordinary historical experience."
"Erdogan is bombing our values, not just the Kurds. [...] The authority of the great democracies and the Western world is at stake. And unfortunately, we cannot count on the Americans, who are in the hands of a leadership whose credibility is now close to zero. This increases the responsibility of Europeans."
"1921 is celebrated as the birth of the Italian Communist Party, but in reality it was a defeat, a split in the workers' movement, just as fascism was rising."
"Massimo D'Alema has given the reviled journalists such a barrage of criticism of the PD that even Beppe Grillo would be envious. The difference is that the broadside fired by the first person to be scrapped in the Renzi era is not delivered in the shouting language of a blog, but recited in the cold, lucid language of political battle and party struggle."
"Berlusconi should not be wary of him [Massimo D'Alema], but rather of people like Bossi."
"Berlusconi dresses his people up as nineteenth-century gymnasts and takes them to Bermuda? D'Alema summons VIPs to a convent. What's the difference?"
"[In a world where:] There is the graceful Vendola with his silver tongue and earring, who plays the communist and wants to take the place of Bersani, who does everything without doing anything; there is Veltroni, the American of Piazza Fiume, bard of Kennedy and bard of Che Guevara, who hated each other. There is the super “Baffino” D'Alema, who takes himself so seriously and whom no one takes seriously anymore. There is Rutelli, who no longer knows which jacket to wear, having already worn them all. Yesterday for divorce or abortion, today for the Pope and the Council of Trent."
"There has always been a reverential shyness towards him on the part of journalists."
"D'Alema, after all, is the most communist of them all: he wants to come to power and stay there without democracy."
"D'Alema is a hyena; those who preach hatred sooner or later fall."
"(On the comparison with Palmiro Togliatti) D'Alema has great political intelligence, but he has less experience, and this leads him to be more impetuous and less attentive to repercussions."
"D'Alema, a great strategist, historical insights always arise from great mistakes, such as when Columbus confused America with the Indies."
"D'Alema is worth ten Cofferati. But he had a great opportunity to change the left and didn't take it. Lack of courage."
"He is a fraud who does not want to give the people a constituent assembly. The left is deceitful: it wants to enjoy the fruits of the majority system while wearing the mask of reform."
"[In 2014] I had to listen to Massimo D'Alema say that Matteo Renzi is not left-wing. Why, is he? It's ridiculous."
"He is not interested in projects unless they are a justification for political action, [...] caricaturing the character of Elikon in Camus' Caligula."
"The bishops have been enlisted in Franceschiello's army, the army of the party-state. The corporal at the head is Massimo D'Alema, followed in the second row by the bishops on their mares, behind them are the union employees and, at a respectful distance, el conductor Berluscons, head down, wearing dark glasses, hooked to the trough of National Socialism."
"I have nothing personal against D'Alema, Bindi, Veltroni, and the others: but they didn't make it. And so I say it, with the utmost respect and humility, but I say it: enough is enough, it's time for others to take over. Their time is truly over."
"[On the role of secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left] At a time like this, we need a party leader with many skills."
"Europe has been absent, silent, and largely ignored. Europe could have been more present if its voice had been entrusted to President D'Alema, whose prestige, knowledge, and experience should not be discarded."
"Massimo D'Alema is talented and intelligent. He is not a man who aims for a vague and confused democratic party like Veltroni. He is a left-wing leader who is different from us. Precisely for this reason, we could form an alliance with him because there would be no confusion."
"I didn't want a pat on the back from him, but someone as intelligent as him cannot afford to allow his party and the center-left to drift toward disaster."
"[To the question: Why do you like D'Alema so much?] Because, like me, he went around at night with a bucket of flour glue to attack election posters. Because he's a national and democratic communist, a staunch supporter of Berlinguer, and therefore almost like me, not like my beautiful niece Bianca Berlinguer, who is beautiful, talented, and a supporter of Veltroni. And he's got balls. He's a true anti-establishment figure, and that's why he's threatened by the judiciary."
"You know, it's a bit like in ancient Greece, where slaves cultivated the fields while citizens could engage in philosophy. Except that Greece gave us Socrates, Aristotle, and Thales, while these [far-left students] gave us D'Alema."
"[On D'Alema's appointment as prime minister] I am pleased and also a little proud. Because D'Alema is a leader, first of the Communist Party and then of the PDS, with great qualities."
"“Spezzaferro” seems like a Belle Époque tenente, a late 19th-century coiffeur pour dames straight out of a Maupassant short story or a novel by Guido da Verona. But he has the makings of a leader. He is the best fig in the basket of the former Marxist-Leninist party, cleaned up by the ascetic Berlinguer and renamed, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, by the mustachioed Occhetto."
"Biondani Paolo, Gerevini Mario e Malagutti Vittorio, Capitalismo di rapina, Chiarelettere, Milano, 2007. ISBN 9788861900233"
"(About Carlo Donat-Cattin) His intransigence always had popular roots and connections. Alien to secular temptations, freed from instrumental conventions, he strove toward lofty ideals. A clear religion. His lesson: never give in."
"Andreotti did everything and the opposite of everything; Forlani did nothing and the opposite of nothing."
"The real Italian anomaly is not Berlusconi, but that Forlani is doing community service and D'Alema is in the Prime Minister's office."
"When I see ministers using Twitter like misfits in work chats use WhatsApp—smiling faces, waving hands, dancing sluts—I feel a poignant nostalgia for Forlani."
"We won't be late today. We must allow the secretary to go to the Pope. At least for a blessing: he needs it. In every respect."
"The liberal conception of economic matters is indeed untenable, as there is a need for regulation in line with a more comprehensive framework for the global economy, not least in order to achieve the greatest possible prosperity. When we speak of control of the economy, however, we do not mean that the State should be the manager of all economic activities, but we are referring to the State in the complexity of its powers and therefore largely to the State which does not exclude individual initiatives, but coordinates, regulates and guides them."
"Decentralisation in the management of common interests, the establishment of more local and controllable centres, and the trust placed in those directly concerned are all means of bringing power closer to the governed and humanising it as a guarantee of its proper purpose."
"The party seeks to engage with reality, to guide and shape it according to its intuition, in the light of its human ideals. For a party, and above all a party such as ours, is an obligatory point of passage from society to the State, from the particular to the universal, from fact to law. It is called upon to understand reality, but also to pass judgement on it and provide a guiding principle. It starts from individual positions, yet already amalgamates them, already effecting a synthesis in which the State begins to exist. The party, far from exhausting its task in a crystallisation achieved once and for all, maintains a permanent dialogue which constantly verifies the validity of the legal framework and ensures its continuous adaptation to the living demands of social life and thus to a criterion of substantive justice."
"Nehru is undoubtedly one of humanity’s great figures and had already secured his place in history during his lifetime. [...] He was a model of understanding between the civilisations of the East and the West. Much is certainly owed to this fact, as it enabled him, in his global activities, to exert a moderating influence by promoting respect for the institutions of international cooperation. His loss affects the whole of humanity."
"To get things done, one needs all the time that is required."
"There must be no scapegoats, no human sacrifices... The Christian Democrats are closing ranks around their own... You will not put us on trial in the streets; we will not allow ourselves to be put on trial."
"Race is the biological element which, by creating particular affinities, determines the identification of the specific sphere of social experience, which is the primary distinguishing feature of the particularities of the State."
"When one speaks the truth, one must not regret having spoken it: the truth is always enlightening."
":Also quoted at the beginning of the film Five Moons Square."
"It is not enough to say this simply to have a clear conscience: we have our limits; we are politicians, and the most appropriate and reliable thing we can do is to give free rein to justice, to ensure that a judge – finally, a true judge – can deliver his verdict. :*from a speech to the Chamber of Deputies on the Lockheed scandal, 11 March 1977; from Scritti e discorsi, edited by Giuseppe Rossini, Cinque lune, 1982."
"Power is truly and solely legitimised through continuous contact with its human roots and is subject to an insurmountable limit: the social forces that matter in their own right, the growth of decision-making centres, and the pluralism that expresses the irreducible multiplicity of the free forms of community life. (during the 11th Congress of the Christian Democrats, Rome, 29 June 1969)"
"The democratic state, the state of human dignity, the state founded on the dignity of every person and which guarantees the dignity of every person, is a state in which every action is removed from arbitrariness and tyranny, in which every sphere of interest and power obeys a strict delimitation of justice, an objective criterion which is, by its very nature, liberating; it is a state in which public power itself takes the form, measure and limits of the law, and the law, as a general provision, is an act of clarity, an assumption of responsibility, a general and equal commitment. (from the speech delivered in Milan, 3 October 1959)"
"No one is called upon to choose between being in Europe and in the Mediterranean, since the whole of Europe lies within the Mediterranean."
"And, as regards this question of punishment—of what form punishment should take—a negative judgement must, in principle, be passed not only on capital punishment, which instantly and definitively removes the offender from society, but also on life imprisonment: life imprisonment, which, being devoid of any hope, any prospect, any incentive for repentance and rehabilitation, appears no less cruel and inhumane than the death penalty."
"We speak, with good reason, of a rift between civil society and political society, and we observe a certain crisis within the parties, a decline in their authority, and a diminished ability to resolve the problems of national life on the basis of understanding, consensus and trust. But is there not, at the root of this inadequate presence of the parties, an inability on our part, as the political class, to make use of the critical conscience and the willpower of the democratic grassroots?"
"Be independent. Do not look to tomorrow but to the day after tomorrow."
"(Writing to Benigno Zaccagnini) Due to an obvious incompatibility, I ask that neither State authorities nor party officials attend my funeral. I ask to be followed by the few who truly loved me and are therefore worthy of accompanying me with their prayers and their love."
"Returning to you, Hon. Andreotti, who, to our misfortune and that of the country (which will soon realise it), heads the Government, it is not my intention to dwell on your lacklustre career. This is no fault of yours. One can be lacklustre, yet honest; lacklustre, yet good; lacklustre, yet full of fervour. Well, Mr Andreotti, this is precisely what you lack [...] You lack precisely that human fervour. You lack that combination of goodness, wisdom, flexibility and clarity which, without reservation, characterise the few Christian Democrats in the world. You are not one of them. It will last a little longer, a little less, but it will pass without leaving a trace [...] It will pass into the sad annals of history, especially now, which suits you."
"One does not stand as a candidate for the Quirinale; one is nominated."
"Of course, I cannot fail to highlight the malice of all those Christian Democrats who sought to force me into a post against my will; a post which, had it been necessary for the Party, should have been secured for me even if it meant agreeing to a prisoner exchange. I am convinced that would have been the wisest course of action. Even at this critical juncture, my deep personal bitterness remains. Has no one come forward to distance themselves? Someone ought to tell Giovanni what political activity means. Has no one regretted pushing me to take this step, which I clearly did not want to take? And Zaccagnini? How can he remain calm in his position? And Cossiga, who could not come up with any defence? My blood will be on their hands."
"(Giulio Andreotti) President Carter’s diplomatic courtesy – attributing to you (it is clear he knows little about it) all the successes of the thirty-year Christian Democrat era – will not be enough for you to go down in history. You will go down in the sad annals of history, especially now, which suits you well."
"He had a sense of party loyalty. He was uncompromising, even intolerant. Perhaps he was less flexible than I was."
"Moro alive is of no use to anyone anymore."
"Aldo Moro was from Maglie, my mother’s home town. They used to play together as children. My mother, his sister Raffaella and Aldo – perhaps the only decent politician this country has ever had."
"Fanfani is an erupting volcano, albeit intermittently; Moro, on the other hand, is seething inside."
"Illegal funding has always existed. Malagodi took money from Confindustria; Moro stood up to defend Gui. It’s just that they had... the guts. We let ourselves be torn apart, our parliamentary immunity stripped away."
"I care for Moro and have given him plenty of good advice. But he doesn’t follow it and has got it into his head that I am his rival. Once Moro gets an idea into his head, there is no way to change it."
"(About the politicians who will go down in the history of the Christian Democrats) Dossetti, De Gasperi, but I could also add Piccioni, La Pira, and Moro. I have never seen people of that calibre, of that character, of that stature, in the party again."
"Moro is the man who emerges from his letters, those letters he wrote whilst a prisoner of the Red Brigades, which are the most painful and humiliating words ever to have come from a prison. The "distinguished statesman" who, when push comes to shove, renounces all the principles of the rule of law, seems to regard the State and its institutions as his own private property, and invites his party colleagues and the Republic’s leading representatives to do the same. The man who asks for mercy for himself but, in ninety letters, has not a single word for the men of his security police, killed for him; indeed, the only mention he makes of them is coldly bureaucratic, describing them as "administratively unfit". The politician who confirms the tradition of the Italian ruling class, ready to demand everything—even life itself—from the humble, yet never willing, on the rare occasions it happens, to pay the price personally (think of Mussolini fleeing under a German overcoat, or the way the king and Badoglio abandoned Rome). To say these things about a man who died as Moro did may seem—indeed, is—cruel. But it is the truth. And since I wrote these things whilst Moro was still alive ("Distinguished statesman or poor man?". Il Lavoro, 4 April 1978),"
"I have no qualms about repeating them now that he is dead and further details are emerging to complete the picture."
"I'm at peace with that man. It was a war, with allies and adversaries. A conflict like the one we saw in those years caused so much suffering."
"When it comes to Moro, we must look beyond emotions, and even beyond the as yet unresolved questions regarding the circumstances of his captivity, his sacrifice and the motives of his killers, and seek to continue exploring the relevance of his political legacy today."
"Luigi Gui, from an article published in Le Prospettive del Mondo; quoted in La dc ricorda Moro (ucciso 5 anni fa), La Stampa, 9 May 1983."
"[At a summit at the Foreign Ministry following Aldo Moro’s speech] Anyone who speaks in this way can only be a swindler and can only represent a people of swindlers."
"Moro was clearly the most prominent figure. He was as taciturn as he was intelligent; he possessed a formidable intellectual reputation. The only concrete evidence I had of his intellect was the Byzantine complexity of his syntax. [...] Moro clearly had no interest in international affairs. He was the party’s strategist par excellence, destined to devise new avenues in domestic politics with extraordinary subtlety; he took on the Foreign Affairs portfolio not out of any deep-seated vocation, but purely and simply as a springboard to power."
"Aldo Moro. Dr Divago."
"Although Moro’s papers, and countless photographs and testimonies, speak of great popular affection for him, Moro was certainly one of the most controversial leaders this country has ever had: particularly among politicians and intellectuals, he found fierce detractors and passionate supporters; he was – like few others – both loved and downright hated."
"Many other Catholic leaders, even with a secular sensibility, would have sought a synthesis between the religious and political dimensions: this synthesis is absent in Moro; and not by mistake, or lack of awareness, but because of the fundamentally secular roots of his politics. Perhaps this is where, even today, his modernity lies."
"And the painful image comes to mind of a friend so dear to us, of an honest man, of a politician of great intellect and vast culture: Aldo Moro. What a void he has left in his party and in this assembly! Had he not been cruelly murdered, he, not I, would be speaking to you today from this seat."
"A man of great intelligence, but extremely shy. He hated cameras and refused to have make-up applied in the studio. He wore a waistcoat, could not bear anyone touching him and at the same time was afraid to show this idiosyncrasy."
"He is the embodiment of southern pessimism. Centuries of the sirocco, it was said, are in his gaze."