Indro Montanelli

Servitude, in many cases, is not forced upon by the masters, but a temptation of the servants. []

[A certain Italian judge] declared in an interview that at night he has no need of 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.

— Indro Montanelli science

Certainly, for a newspaper director, to have within arm's reach a , about whom every starring actor, supporting cast and extra of Italian political life he is ready upon cold request to provide an inquiry brief refined in the most minute details is a nice comfort. But also a bit unsettling. The day I asked him if in that archive, into which no one is allowed to stick their nose, there were a brief with my name on it, Marco changed the subject.

— Indro Montanelli life

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

— Indro Montanelli end

Which ever one of you will want to become a journalist, let him remember to choose his own master: the reader.

— Indro Montanelli you

[Gladio] had been founded in almost all the Countries that belonged to the Nato, and for wish of the Nato, aware that her European partners would not have been able to withstand the attack of a Power superarmata qual it was the Soviet union: they would have had to wait, for receives it the intervention of America. The fact shows that when this plan was revealed, any other Country found nothing to repeat of it. Only us Italian - the usual novelists imbeciles and worse that imbeciles - made subject of it of scandal and pretext of "yellow" that they still find credit, as its letter shows. Also I feel me scandalized, and an a little offended. But only from the fact that nobody has solicited me the adhesion to the Gladio: I would have given her with enthusiasm.

— Indro Montanelli war

The American death penalty exists and it withstands in America because it was a basic and constitutive element of its birth and development. Of the famous 102 «Wandering Fathers» that for first they disembarked from the «Mayflower» in that Continent not to ransack the wealths as they made Spaniards and Portuguese in Mexico and in America of the South, but to build you a new and free society, around the two bystanders they were leftovers of jail that ran away the Justice and the jails of Europe, and a bystander they were men that liberty looked for, and above all that religious. The first ones had in pocket the gun, the seconds the Bible, but in his/her Calvinist version that of the retaliation, based on the conception of a God executioner that demands the death of whom without correct motive it gives it.

— Indro Montanelli death

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

— Indro Montanelli man

Men do not know how to appreciate and measure luck except that of others. Their own never.

— Indro Montanelli luck

Cynics are all moralists, and merciless too.

— Indro Montanelli

Italian husbands, in order to buy their wives a fur, spend more than all theircollegues.

— Indro Montanelli end

Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith.

— Indro Montanelli faith

The parties had finally put the wrong man at the wrong place.was not without his qualities. But they all became defects when endowed by the duties of a goverment. It was seen when he was minister, and was accomplishing little: and that little bit, usually, would have been better had he not accomplished it.

— Indro Montanelli art

The nice thing about political pundits is that, when they answer a question, one no longer understands what they were asked.

— Indro Montanelli political

rewarded jackasses in uniform. Democracy gives priviliges to those in sports' gear. In Italy, political regimes come to pass. The jackasses remain. Triumphant.

— Indro Montanelli war

I have never dreamt of contesting the Church her right to remain faithful to herself, meaning to the commandments that come from Doctrine... but that she expects to impose these commandments upon me who do not have the good fortune of being a believer, trying to pour them into civil law in a way that they become obligatory even to us non-believers, is it right? To me it doesn't seem so.

— Indro Montanelli faith

I do not want to suffer, I do not have aconcept of suffering. They tell us that suffering elevates the spirit; no suffering is something that hurts and that's all, it elevates nothing. And therefore I fear suffering. Because with regards to death, I, who in everything believe to be moderate, am absolutely radical. If we have a right to life, we have also a right to death. It rests on us, and it must be regognized the right to choose the when and the how of our own death.

— Indro Montanelli life

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.

— Indro Montanelli life

[...] the love of power excludes all others.

— Indro Montanelli love

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. But only one you may win. The one that you engage every morning, in front of the mirror.

— Indro Montanelli people

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

— Indro Montanelli nature

is a democratic sickness: it afflicts everyone.

— Indro Montanelli

[Addressed to Berlusconi who wanted to impose himself on the editorial style of ""] In the art of entrepeneurship, you are certainly a genius, and I an asshole. But in the art of argument the genius is me, and you the asshole.

— Indro Montanelli art

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

— Indro Montanelli love

Pertini has interpreted as their best the worst about Italians.

— Indro Montanelli best

The more I deepen the topic of regions (I'm in Milan for this reason), and the more I am dismayed by having to write about it. Little is needed to understand that what these Lombard regionalists are pursuing, knowingly or unknowingly, is a Cisalpine secessionist plan. And, once they've had the instrument, they'll manage to realize it. It isn't for no reason that Bassetti speaks already no longer of "! It wasn't but a fiction, agreed, and in practice it has failed. But with what will we replace it?

— Indro Montanelli fiction

When a nice quote comes to mind, I always attribute it to , or to . They've never complained. []

— Indro Montanelli mind

This isn't the , this is the billy-club. Italians don't know how to go Right without ending up in the billy-club.

— Indro Montanelli wit

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

— Indro Montanelli man

A country that ignores its own yesterday, of which it knows absolutely nothing and doesn't cure itself of knowing nothing, can't have a tomorrow. []

— Indro Montanelli self

A real writer [...] looks not in another writer but himself.

— Indro Montanelli self

We must get it through to our heads that the fight against corruption is done in one way only: by changing the Italians, not by changing political parties. Political parties, even the new ones, corrupt themselves, it's inevitable. []

— Indro Montanelli art

I fly toon '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.

— Indro Montanelli men

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