Prime Ministers Of Italy

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"The truth must be told whatever the cost."

"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."

"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."

"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."