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Silvio Berlusconi

Italian politician and media tycoon (1936–2023)

Silvio Berlusconi (29 September 1936 – 12 June 2023) was an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011.

Only Napoleon did more than I have done. But I am definitely taller.

Quotes

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  • Think of how many women there are out there who would like to go to bed with me, but don't know it. Life is a problem of communication
    • Quoted in Alexander Stille, "The Sack of Rome" (2006), page 59.

2000s

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I did not say anything against the Islamic civilization... It's the work of some people in the Italian leftist press who wanted to tarnish my image and destroy my long-standing relations with Arabs and Muslims.
  • They have tried to hang me on an isolated word, taken out of context from my whole speech … I did not say anything against the Islamic civilization... It's the work of some people in the Italian leftist press who wanted to tarnish my image and destroy my long-standing relations with Arabs and Muslims.
 
I am absolutely sure to be the most democratic man to ever become Prime Minister in Italy.
  • I am absolutely sure to be the most democratic man to ever become Prime Minister in Italy.
    • ASCA (25 January 2002)
 
I always win, I'm cursed to win.
 
I'm a man of honour, a truthful person, a gentleman of absolute morality.
  • I always win, I'm cursed to win.
  • I'm a man of honour, a truthful person, a gentleman of absolute morality.
    • As quoted in "La Repubblica" (13 July 2003)
  • If they do that kind of job is because they are anthropologically different from the other human beings.
    • ANSA (5 September 2003)
  • There is a natural right that says that when the state asks you for a third of what you earned through back-breaking work, this seems to you a reasonable demand and you give in. If the state asks you for more, or much more, then it is a clear abuse against you and then you try to find evasive ways to make you feel coherent to your intimate sense of morality and it doesn't make you feel ethically guilty.
 
Foreign press is usually leftist and describes us differently from what we really are.
  • Foreign press is usually leftist and describes us differently from what we really are.
    • Speech to the association Azzurri nel mondo, Lugano (24 October 2004)
  • If the left wing was to rule, the result would be misery, terror and death, like it happens in every place where communism rules.
    • Quoted in Corriere della Sera (17 January 2005)
  • The left has always been on the wrong side. They were against Hitler, but not against Stalin.
    • Quoted in la Repubblica (3 February 2005)
 
I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I sacrifice myself for everyone.
  • By definition, as a Prime Minister I cannot be a liar.
    • Italian Radio National Broadcast (18 January 2006)
  • Thank you dear Father Massimiliano, I'll try not to let you down and I promise you two and a half months of complete sexual abstinence until April 9 [election].
    • Speaking at his party's convention in Sardinia (28 January 2006), as reported in Il Giornale (29 January 2006)
    • Variant translation: I'll try not to let you down and I promise you two and a half months of complete sexual abstinence until election day.
  • Do it my way and earn more money.
    • Advice to Italians trying to escape poverty, in an interview with Italian Telelombardia (6 March 2006)
  • I have Italian citizens in too good consideration to think that there are so many voting assholes (literally: "coglioni", rude word for testicles) around which could vote against their own interests. I apologize for the rude but effective language.
  • The April 9th/10th vote is like that one of 1948, when democratic forces rejected the communist offensive and firmly moved the Country to the West, towards democracy and its values.
    • Quoted in "Affari Italiani" magazine (7 April 2006)
 
The public prosecutor … should be subject to regular examinations to attest to sanity.
  • Marcello Dell'Utri is right: Mangano was a hero, because he never invented anything about me.
    • Statement during a television show on La7 (9 April 2008)
 
They're not gaffes. I've made no gaffes.
 
They keep calling me a dwarf, but I'm taller than Sarkozy and Putin.
  • The women of the Right are certainly the most beautiful … the Left has no taste, not even when it comes to women
    • As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)
  • People will vote for Daniela Santanchè because she is a beautiful babe.
    • As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)
  • Ladies, I have a mission for you on election day: cook! Sweet and exquisite things, please. Bring them to the polling station to be examined. The boldest can try making a tart, the most skilful, profiteroles
    • As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)
  • It's the fate of the lion in winter: all his billions, all his television channels cannot rescue him from the mockery that rains down on the aged lecher, his powers visibly waning.
    • On aging, as quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)
  • They keep calling me a dwarf, but I'm taller than Sarkozy and Putin.
    • As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008)
 
The real Italian anomaly is not Silvio Berlusconi but communist prosecutors and communist judges in Milan who have attacked him again and again since he entered politics.

2010s

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  • We don't want to see just one forward up front. To win you have to score. To have chances you've got to have forwards close to the goal, I appreciated Leonardo a lot but I disagreed with him in how he fielded the team. Ronaldinho must play on the shoulder of the strikers even if he has a tendency to drift left. Ronaldinho has been linked in the media with a move away but Berlusconi was adamant the playmaker was staying. He is the No1 attraction at Milan," he said, "Ronaldinho does not want to leave. I'm sure he is happy to stay.
    I would be happy for Gattuso to stay but we are not against people saying they want to leave, We can't exclude [the sale of Huntelaar] even if we are convinced of his qualities as a main striker.
 
The life in Italy is the life of a wealthy country, consumptions haven't diminished, it's hard to find seats on planes, our restaurants are full of people.
  • They called me, inviting me to watch L'Infedele. I'm watching a disgusting program, run in a despicable, vile and repulsive way. I've heard false and distorted views, far away from the truth. I've seen a representation of reality which is to the contrary of truth.
  • Freedom means having the right to freely educate your children, and freely means no obligation to send them in a public school, where teachers want to inculcate principles different from the principles that their parents want to inculcate them in a familiar context.
  • Obviously the government of [Mussolini's] time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it … The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well.

2020s

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  • [On the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine] Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation.
  • The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv in a week, replace the Zelensky government with decent people and a week later come back.
  • The aggression against Ukraine is unjustifiable and unacceptable, [Forza Italia's] position is clear. We will always be with the EU and Nato.
  • Massacres of civilians in Bucha and other localities are real war crimes.
  • (Italian language) [...] io, a parlare con Zelensky, se fossi stato il Presidente del Consiglio non ci sarei mai andato. Perché, come sapete, stiamo assistendo alla devastazione del suo paese e alla strage di suoi soldati e di suoi civili. Bastava che lui cessasse di attaccare le due repubbliche autonome del Donbass e questo non sarebbe avvenuto; quindi io giudico molto molto, molto negativamente il comportamento di questo signore.
    • [...] I, talking to Zelensky, if I had been the Prime Minister I would never have gone. Because, as you know, we are witnessing the devastation of his country and the massacre of his soldiers and civilians. It was enough for him to stop attacking the two autonomous republics of Donbass and this would not have happened; so I judge very very, very negatively the behavior of this gentleman.
    • lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2023/02/13/berlusconi-supports-putin-zelensky-attacked-republics-of-the-donbass/ , La Voce di New York, 13 february 2023
    • original italian language audio source: www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/politica/2023/02/12/berlusconi-da-premier-non-sarei-mai-andato-da-zelensky_c3f4cd65-ccb9-4f0d-b813-9cc8a4b26379.html (video from 00:02 to 00:30)

Quotes about Berlusconi

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Alphabetized by author
 
Every headline is about sweet Silvio, because sometimes you don't have to be first to be famous. Even people who hate him, and there are a lot of them, want to read and hear about him. ~ Erin Burnett
  • One of the wildest elections in Italian history is finally over. And as expected, it came down to one guy, the guy who inspired a group of topless female protesters to storm his polling station. That looks so inappropriate. Shouting, "Enough, Berlusconi, enough!"
    That's right. Bunga, bunga is back. Yesterday and today, all of the headlines had been about Silvio Berlusconi's amazing return to power.
    There's just one problem. He lost.     When all the votes were counted, Silvio finished with 31 percent, a strong showing but only good enough for second place behind a guy called Pier Luigi Bersani.
    But still every headline is about sweet Silvio, because sometimes you don't have to be first to be famous. Even people who hate him, and there are a lot of them, want to read and hear about him. … Silvio, Danica and Tiger, what a threesome. They're not famous for nothing. They are hugely successful at a level that most of us can only dream of.
    But what really matters is that they have that something, that ineffable and intangible something simply known as star power. People care about them.     That's even when they lose, they're the ones we want to hear about.
    And maybe that's a great gift or maybe it leads to an intense stressful life since every loss and every failures in the headlines you can't have any secrets. Only perfection is enough.
  • To me Silvio Berlusconi incarnates all the qualities a stateman should have. When I studied politics, I was taught that the ideal politician is a man who having had success in his own profession and not having economic worries for himself and his family, decides to devote part of his life to the service of his people at the local or national level, which is tantamount to saying that the ideal politician ought to be:
• A self made man, who, as such, has already proven his work capabilities,
• Rich enough to be insensitive to bribery.
No matter what his adversaries say, this is the picture of Silvio Berlusconi, who on top of all that, is a very charismatic figure with a great sense of humor, which makes him a political leader ahead of his time, at least for Italy.
  • Giglio Reduzzi, in Berlusconi: The Truth About Italy's Much Maligned Premier (2010), p. 25
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