Iris Origo > Quotes

“Just as, in travel, one may miss seeing the sunset because one cannot find the ticket-office or is afraid of missing the train, so in even the closest human relationships a vast amount of time and of affection is drained away in minor misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and failures in consideration or understanding.”
― Iris Origo

“These—the shared, simple acts of everyday life—are the realities on which international understanding can be built.”
― Iris Origo, War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944

“every subject under the sun, was seen only in its relation to vested interests. So complete, so whole-hearted was his preoccupation that after an hour’s conversation I began to wonder whether I had not been incredibly naïve in believing there was any other governing motive in human life.”
― Iris Origo, A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939–1940

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
― Iris Origo, War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944

“There is a bitter irony for listeners here in the exhortations of the BBC to the Italian people to rid themselves of the Germans: so might one urge a sheep to rid itself of a wolf.”
― Iris Origo, War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944

“He was not being a propagandist, but simply stating a creed, a creed to which he brought an absolutely single-minded, self-denying devotion, with no half-shades of humour, self-criticism or doubt.”
― Iris Origo, War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944

“Mussolini, like all other dictators, is betrayed by his own men.”
― Iris Origo, War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944