Looking for beautiful quotes about Italy? The country nicknamed the Bel Paese has inspired novelists, historians, and travel writers for centuries. From its stunning coastlines to its dazzling cities, Italy never ceases to delight. Whether you’re looking for travel inspiration or Italy Instagram captions, here are my favorite Italy quotes.
Read next: 250 Inspirational Travel Quotes & Travel Instagram Captions
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The Best Quotes about Italy & Italy Travel Quotes
The name of Italy has magic in its very syllables. –
Italy’s siren call lures us more and more. –
We are all pilgrims who seek Italy. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life. -Anna Akhmatova
Even now I miss Italy dearly, I dream about it every night. -Eila Hiltunen
One of the great joys of traveling through Italy is discovering firsthand that it is, indeed, a dream destination. -Debra Levinson
A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. -Samuel Johnson
Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It’s alluring, but complicated. It’s the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis. –
For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery. -D.H. Lawrence
Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity or at least is reminiscent of childhood. -Alexander Herzen
It is a place that ‘grows upon you’ every day. There seems to be always something to find out in it. There are the most extraordinary alleys and by-ways to walk about in. You can lose your way (what a comfort that is, when you are idle!) twenty times a day, if you like; and turn up again, under the most unexpected and surprising difficulties. It abounds in the strangest contrasts; things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, magnificent, delightful, and offensive, break upon the view at every turn. –
My idea of heaven still is to drive the gravel farm roads of Umbria and Tuscany, very pleasantly lost. –
A man has not fully lived until he experiences that gentle balmy clime of ancient empires, the land of lemon trees and the genius of Michelangelo. –
Italian cities have long been held up as ideals, not least by New Yorkers and Londoners enthralled by the ways their architecture gives beauty and meaning to everyday acts. –
The Creator made Italy by designs from Michelangelo. -Mark Twain
The greatest joy was moving into Italy. Italy has changed me, for the better. –
Italy, like areas of her childhood, is a part of her world she has always kept secret from her husband. These are places she goes to renew her virginity. –
Life offers you a thousand chances… all you have to do is take one. –
You may have the universe if I may have Italy. -Giuseppe Verdi
In America, one must be something, but in Italy one can simply be. –
Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building after seeing Italy. -Fanny Burney
I love places that have an incredible history. I love the Italian way of life. I love the food. I love the people. I love the attitudes of Italians. -Elton John
No, mother; no. She was really keen on Italy. This travel is quite a crisis for her.” He found the situation full of whimsical romance: there was something half attractive, half repellent in the thought of this vulgar woman journeying to places he loved and revered. Why should she not be transfigured? The same had happened to the Goths. –
There are olive trees outside and the imagined smell of their bark and silvered leaves brings with it the first unfurling of some new imperative she feels coiled up within her. Her whole body with a joyful shout knows it is back in Italy. –
Is there anywhere in the world as full of beauty as Italy? –
What I remember most about those days is how happy we all were. When I think back on my life growing up on Terra d’Amore, tides of warm memories wash over me like the waves of the Mediterranean. Our little farm, nestled in the hills and valleys of Montecalvo just outside Bologna, was idyllic. Indeed, it was an Italian paradise…veritable heaven. –
She was a grown-up, divorced woman now, on her own. She’d gotten herself this far, she could get herself around Italy too. –
This was the Italy that fed her soul, where hope was restored and broken hearts were mended in the hands of great artists. –
When life gives you twists and turns, Chique Yourself Up in Italy! –
In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. -Orson Welles
What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago. -Erica Jong
If the landscape of human emotion were to exist in country, it would be in Italy. -Lisa Fantino
Italy will never be a normal country. Because Italy is Italy. If we were a normal country, we wouldn’t have Rome. We wouldn’t have Florence. We wouldn’t have the marvel that is Venice. -Matteo Renzi
Tonight I watched the sunset at Ponte Vecchio. I think it’s safe to say I have finally found the place that feels right to me. I just can’t believe I had to come halfway across the world to find it. –
Wasting time is something that people do or feel all over the world, not just in Italy. -Paolo Sorrentino
Italy and London are the only places where I don’t feel to exist on sufferance. –
Here we are at last. The Italian proverb says “See Naples and die” but I say, see Naples and live; for there seems a great deal worth living for. –
Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave. –
Italy, all the same, had spoiled a great many people; he was even fatuous enough to believe at times that he himself might have been a better man if he had spent less of his life there. –
When I come to reflect on the subject, in no country have I received such honors or been so esteemed as in Italy, and nothing contributes more to a man’s fame than to have written Italian operas, and especially for Naples. -Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Who can resist sleep at two or three in the afternoon in these sunlit parts of the Mediterranean? –
How beautiful is sunset, when the glow of Heaven descends upon a land like thee, Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy! -Percy Bysshe Shelley
That which at twilight had appeared to be a silvery sea-god’s palace, a structure of twisted sea-shapes, was now a temple built by the cunning genies of Fire. –
Quotes About Italian People
And don’t, let me beg you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy’s only a museum of antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvelous than the land. –
Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying,’We understand how it is – we have one, too.’ –
America with its expansive youth, building all those drive-in movie theaters and cowboy restaurants; Italians living in endless contraction, in the artifacts of generations, in the bones of empires. –
The reality is that when you visit Italy, you’ll be hijacked by relatives of all sorts; the entire family tree is waiting to meet you. –
The Italians were getting so accustomed to tragedies and disasters that their appetite for sensation was becoming jaded. –
He knows his olive trees better than he knows his children. –
The Italians are called “Children of the Sun”. They might better be called “Children of the Shadow”. Their souls are dark and nocturnal. –
Totally contrary to my genetic makeup, contrary to my usual behavior and preferences, contrary to all logic, I fell madly in love with Italy, its people and its chaos. –
In Italy there are about 60 million people and we know how high is the percentage of morons on national soil. –
I love Italy. For hundreds of years, if not centuries, the people of italy (Italians) have been living here. –
In Italy, even the policemenists look like they’ve just come off a catwalk. One I found, standing on a rostrum in the middle of a Roman square, was immaculate, as was his routine. Each wave of the hand, each toot of the whistle and each twist of the body was Pans People perfect. Never mind that the traffic was completely ignoring him, he looked good, and that’s what mattered. Looking good in Italy is even more important than looking where you’re going. –
The pride taken by the Italians in their gifted women is among the most important facts in the history of their Renaissance. –
Italian Food Quotes
It is estimated that Italians eat an average of sixty pounds of pasta yearly— a large bowl of pasta six days a week. –
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy. -Bertrand Russell
Italy will always have the best food. -Diane von Furstenberg
In Italy, they add work and life on to food and wine. -Robin Leach
Italy is my destiny; it calls to me to return home. –
You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it’s for the same two things…Love and gelato. -Jenna Evans Welch
I think people in Italy live their lives better than we do. It’s an older country, and they’ve learned to celebrate dinner and lunch, whereas we sort of eat as quickly as we can to get through it. -George Clooney
The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again. -George Miller
Cooking is about surrender. –
Italian cuisine is the most famous and beloved cuisine in the world for a reason. Accessible, comforting, seemingly simple but endlessly delicious, it never disappoints, just as it seems to never change. –
I spent the next couple of hours either walking around with a gelato in my hand or on my knees in church asking to be forgiven for the sin of gluttony. –
Even gelato, which used to be divine all over Italy, is not dependably good anymore. –
In Italy, food is an expression of love. It is how you show those around you that you care for them. Having a love for food means you also have a love for those you are preparing it for and for yourself. -Joe Bastianich
If you can’t find any grappa, half a cup of cough medicine should achieve similar results. –
I love the simplicity, the ingredients, the culture, the history and the seasonality of Italian cuisine. In Italy people do not travel. They cook the way grandma did, using fresh ingredients and what is available in season. -Anne Burrell
Watching Italians eat (especially men, I have to say) is a form of tourism the books don’t tell you about. They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sounds of acute appreciation. It’s fairly sexy. Of course I don’t know how these men behave at home, if they help with the cooking or are vain and boorish and mistreat their wives. I realized Mediterranean cultures have their issues. Fine, don’t burst my bubble. I didn’t want to marry these guys, I just wanted to watch. -Barbara Kingsolver
I think that lunch is one of the most enjoyable and important things in the day. But you need to create the space and the time to do just that. And in Italy, we do that. -Lidia Bastianich
It was the greatest thing in the world getting fat. Every meal out was an event. Or we’d go to Italy and we’d have pasta, truffles, and dessert and then plan the next incredible meal. It was a happy-go-lucky time. I never had so much fun. -Kirstie Alley
Whether a gastronomic tour of Italy, an elegant meal at the home of an Italian acquaintance, or “cooking Italian” back in one’s own kitchen, the prospect is mouth-watering. –
Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come. –
Italian Weather Quotes
It’s a diamond isle of paradise beneath a black sky! Welcome to a crisp Italian January! -Rebecca McNutt
The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, and water sounds hoarse in the ravines. –
Sometimes the valley below is like a bowl filled up with fog. I can see hard green figs on two trees and pears on a tree just below me. A fine crop coming in. May summer last a hundred years. –
The sun woke Tino early this beautiful morning in his small Italian village. –
In Italy, they say rain on your wedding day is symbolic of fresh beginnings, cleansing, a pure marriage, and also a wet knot that can’t be untied. -Whitney Wolfe Herd
She had always been fond of history, and here was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. –
We had never before been to Italy in May, and it is truly the most wonderful month. The Lucchese countryside is a riot of colour and scent. Every road, even the busy autostrada, is lined with brilliant red poppies, making the most mundane street look picturesque. The olive trees dotting the hills are covered with silvery green and the pale cream of new buds, while the grass is tall and soft, every patch threaded with wildflowers. –
Quotes About Not Liking Italy
I wish Italy would stop being a crybaby. I wish he would kick his bad habit of wanting to eat pasta everywhere. I wish he would stop getting a stomachache every time he ate geleto. –
In Italy we have not a Common law legal system, we have a stupid one instead! –
the city of Naples was like this: wonderful from a distance, but when seen close up, it was fragmentary, indefinable, and coarse. –
The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy. -Thomas Paine
So I am perfectly free to buy any goods that are legally sold throughout Europe, provided that they can be delivered, even though they are not legal in Italy, even because in Italy only stupidity is legal. –
Did I miss any of your favorite Italy jokes or puns? If so, leave it in the comments, and I’ll add it to the list!
5 Things to Pack for Your Trip to Italy
The Lonely Planet Italy guidebook or the Rick Steves Italy guidebook for your trip. It can be kind of a pain to find the major guidebooks once you arrive in Italy, or you’ll find them overpriced. I always like to pick mine up ahead of time.
An Unlocked Cell Phone so that you can use an Italian sim card while here to help navigate the trains.
Backup Charging Bank for your cell phone since you’ll be using it as a camera, GPS system, and general travel genie.
A Camera since Italy is super photogenic. I use a mix of my Nikon D810 and my Samsung8 smartphone these days.
A Great Day Bag so you can carry what you need with you (like your camera, snacks, water, sunscreen, cash, etc). My current favorite is the Pacsafe Citysafe, which is especially great for Italy because it has many anti-theft features.
More Italy Resources
If you’re going to be visiting Rome, check out my interview with Mike Duncan on the history of the Roman Forum. I also have three episodes about Rome on Rick Steves Over Brunch, including this episode on Rome recorded with Rick Steves himself!
And of course, you’ll want to read 50 Beautiful Rome Quotes and the best Rome puns. In addition, I have guides to visiting Ostia Antica from Rome and how to choose between Pompeii or Ostia Antica.
If you’re headed to Venice, check out my podcast episode Rick Steves Over Brunch: Venice and my collection of quotes about Venice and hilarious Venice puns and jokes.
Headed to Milan? Be sure to check out these beautiful ancient Milan churches while you’re there!
Finally, check out my list of books to read before your vacation in Italy and the best Italy puns.
Want more Travel Quotes?
I’m a little obsessed with travel quotes. If you are too, check out this massive guide to 250 Inspirational Travel Quotes & Travel Instagram Captions, plus:
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- 101 London Quotes & Inspiration for London Instagram Captions
- 50 Eternally Beautiful Rome Quotes from Literature, History, & Travel
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance!
Before you leave for Italy make sure you have a valid Travel Insurance Policy because accidents happen on the road. I pay for World Nomads, and I happily recommend them. It’s especially important to get travel insurance if you’ll be hanging out in cities (like Rome…ahem) where tourists can be the victims of pickpockets. Italy is the only country I’ve been to (out of almost seventy) where I’ve had someone try to pick my pocket!
I have been a paying customer of World Nomads for travel insurance for two years, and I happily recommend them. If you get sick, injured, or have your stuff stolen, you’ll be happy to have the ability to pay for your medical bills or replace what’s stolen or broken.
Pin these Italy Quotes & Italy Instagram Captions for Your Trip!
