Quotes & Sayings About Sicily Italy

Italy police arrest 8 in Mafia wind farms plot. Operation "Aeolus," named after the ancient Greek god of winds, netted eight suspects, arrested in the Trapani area of western Sicily [and on the Italian mainland]. Police in Trapani said the local Mafia bribed city officials in nearby Mazara del Vallo so the town would invest in wind farms to produce energy. (Associated Press, 2009 [Google hosted]) — John Etherington

There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer. — Leonardo Sciascia

Cornwall bears a certain resemblance to Italy: each is like a leg or boot, but Italy stands a-tiptoe to the south, whereas Cornwall is thrust out to the west. But, whereas Italy is kicking Sicily as a football, Cornwall has but the shattered group of the Scilly Isles at its toe. — Sabine Baring-Gould

What makes these special Beaujolais attractive is the same thing that has always made Beaujolais attractive: the price. Given the insane prices of so many wines right now, Beaujolais and the delicious wines pouring in from southern Italy and Sicily keep many wine drinkers from switching to iced tea. — Frank J. Prial

To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Scientists say that the palm tree line, that is the climate suitable to growth of the palm, is moving north, five hundred metres, I think it was, every year ... The palm tree line ... I call it the coffee line, the strong black coffee line ... It's rising like mercury in a thermometer, this palm tree line, this strong coffee line, this scandal line, rising up throughout Italy and already passed Rome ... — Leonardo Sciascia

Many critics of the Crusades would seem to suppose that after the Muslims had overrun a major portion of Christendom, they should have been ignored or forgiven; suggestions have been made about turning the other cheek. This outlook is certainly unrealistic and probably insincere. Not only had the Byzantines lost most of their empire; the enemy was at their gates. And the loss of Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy, as well as a host of Mediterranean islands, was bitterly resented in Europe. Hence, as British historian Derek Lomax (1933-1992) explained, 'The popes, like most Christians, believed war against the Muslims to be justified partly because the latter had usurped by force lands which once belonged to Christians and partly because they abused the Christians over whom they ruled and such Christian lands as they could raid for slaves, plunder and the joys of destruction.' It was time to strike back. — Rodney Stark

We haven't time to spare to hear whether it was between Italy and Sicily that he ran into a storm or somewhere outside the world we know-when every day we're running into our own storms, spiritual storms, and driven by vice into all the troubles that Ulysses ever knew. — Seneca The Younger

My dear Homer, if you are really only once removed from the truth, with reference to virtue, instead of being twice removed and the manufacturer of a phantom, according to our definition of an imitator, and if you need to be able to distinguish between the pursuits which make men better or worse, in private and in public, tell us what city owes a better constitution to you, as Lacedaemon owes hers to Lycurgus, and as many cities, great and small, owe theirs to many other legislators? What state attributes to you the benefits derived from a good code of laws? Italy and Sicily recognize Charondas in this capacity, and we solon. But what state recognizes you. — Plato

All Sicilian expression, even the most violent, is really wish fulfillment: our sensuality is a hankering for oblivion, our shooting and knifing a hankering for death; our laziness, our spiced and drugged sherbets, a hankering for voluptuous immobility, that is, for death again; our meditative air is that of a void wanting to scrutinize the enigmas of nirvana. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Sicily could only be an island, less by the caprice of nature than by her own insolence. As though she might have quit Italy had she not already been born separate from it. — Marlena De Blasi

Forces. What utter treachery!" Hitler then makes misleading statements about how he and Mussolini had agreed to defend Sicily. The Fuehrer also offers a backhanded apology to the Japanese for allowing a large amount of the Italian Navy to fall into Allied hands. However, it is Hitler's current plan for the defense of Italy that interests Washington. Oshima quotes him on this as saying: "[The Allies] have two courses: either they will go north in Italy or they will try to land in the Balkans. I am inclined to believe they will take the latter course. I — Bruce Lee

Maybe the whole of italy is becoming a sort of Sicily. — Leonardo Sciascia

The first (barbers) that entered Italy came out of Sicily and it was in the 454 yeare after the foundation of Rome. Brought in they were by P. Ticinius Mena as Verra doth report for before that time they never cut their hair. The first that was shaven every day was Scipio Africanus, and after cometh Augustus the Emperor who evermore used the razor. — Pliny The Elder

I like to collect aprons from different places I go. I first started when I was in Italy because I thought that would be really appropriate. I got a hand-stitched Italian apron from this woman in Sicily who put my name on it, and it said, 'Sicily, Italy.' So now I get one from everywhere I go. — Britt Robertson