Indro Montanelli (1909 – 2001)
Italian journalist and historian.
Fascism rewarded jackasses in uniform. Democracy gives priviliges to those in sports' gear. In Italy, political regimes come to pass. The jackasses remain. Triumphant.
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 potrayers.
No, Travaglio kills no one. With a knife. He uses a weapon much more refined and unendictable in court: the archive.
Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.
Pertini has interpreted as their best the worst about Italians.
[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.
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.
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 the Right, this is the billy-club. Italians don't know how to go Right without ending up in the billy-club.
The nice thing about political pundits is that, when they answer a question, one no longer understands what they were asked.
Servitude, in many cases, is not forced upon by the masters, but a temptation of the servants.
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 "Lombardy region", but of "Padania region", of which the rest of Italy would be but an appendix. If they'll succeed (and they will succeed), farewell Risorgimento! It wasn't but a fiction, agreed, and in practice it has failed. But with what will we replace it?
[...] the love of power excludes all others.