Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793) was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays.

• Non mancano pretesti quando si vuole.
  • Pretexts are not wanting when one wishes to use them.
  • La Villeggiatura (1761), I, 12.

• Chi ben commincia è alia meta dell' opra.
  • Who well begins, is half way through his task.
  • Il filosofo di campagna (The Country Philosopher) (1752), Part II, scene I (translation by Lesbina); reported in Thomas Benfield Harbottle and Philip Hugh Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations (French and Italian) (1904), p. 261.

• Bello è il rossore, ma è incommodo qualche volta.
  • The blush is beautiful, but it is sometimes inconvenient.
  • I. 3.

• Chi parla troppo non può parlar sempre bene.
  • He who talks much cannot always talk well.
  • I. 6.

• Chi non esce dal suo paese, vive pieno di pregiudizi.
  • He who never leaves his country is full of prejudices.
  • I, 14.

• Il mondo è un bel libro, ma poco serve a chi non lo sa leggere.
  • The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read it.
  • I. 14.

• Un viaggiatore prudente non disprezza mai il suo paese.
  • A wise traveler never despises his own country.
  • I. 16.

• Muore per metà chi lascia un' immagine di se stesso nei figli.
  • He only half dies who leaves an image of himself in his sons.
  • II. 2.

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Carlo Goldoni