The Eternal City has been a source of inspiration for poets, writers, and thinkers for centuries. One could fill an entire library with "Quotes about rome" alone, testifying to the city's indelible mark on the fabric of culture, history, and art.
From its majestic Colosseum to the intricate designs of the Vatican, Rome weaves a tale that is both timeless and evolving, inviting all who walk its cobbled streets to be part of its never-ending narrative.
Rome Quotes (2024)
Rome, the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning. Throughout history, its charm and grandeur have touched the hearts of many. Here are quotes that encapsulate the essence of Rome:
"Rome was not built in a day." - Proverb
"All roads lead to Rome." - Proverb
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." - St. Ambrose
"Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning." - Giotto di Bondone
"Rome is not like any other city. It's a big museum, a living room that shall be crossed on one's toes." - Alberto Sordi
"Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome." - Robert De Niro
"I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble." - Augustus
"From the dome of St. Peter's one can see every notable object in Rome... He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe." - Mark Twain
"Rome – the city of visible history." - George Eliot
"In Rome, I particularly love the history, churches, sculptures, and architecture and the fact that you can walk along a tiny cobbled street and turn the corner to find the Pantheon." - Philip Treacy
"Rome holds my psyche in balance. Whenever I'm there, it's like a holiday." - Giambattista Valli
"To Rome, for everything." - Latin Proverb
"Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!" - Lord Byron
"Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today." - Arthur Erickson
"You cheer my heart, who build as if Rome would be eternal." - Augustus
"Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness." - Livy
"The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer." - George R.R. Martin, referencing Rome.
"I sometimes fancy," said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene always made a strong impression, "that Rome--mere Rome--will crowd everything else out of my heart." - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"Rome is a place almost worn out by being looked at, a city collapsing under the weight of reference." - Graham Joyce
"The Roman evening either keeps still or it sings. No middle course is possible." - Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
"For someone like me who's lived in the same house in Rome all her life, it's a pain in the neck." - Monica Bellucci
"One lifetime is not enough for Rome." - Robert Hughes
"Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city." - Anatole Broyard
"Rome is a city full of many things to behold but none so pleasing as the Trevi Fountain." - Diane Von Furstenberg
"Rome has so much to offer, I love the history and culture of the city." - Riccardo Tisci
"No city is so magnificent as Rome when it rains." - Mary Beard
"They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job." - Brian Clough
"Rome is built on ruins and is quite breathtaking; what makes you think you can't be too?" - Nikita Gill
"As I passed along the side walls of Westminster Abbey, I hardly saw any thing but marble monuments of great admirals, but which were all too much crowded with finery and ornaments, to make on the mind at once the intended impression." - Karl Philipp Moritz, referencing Rome.
"I cannot write about Venice; I can only write about me, and the sleeping parts of myself that Venice has shocked into wakefulness." - Jessica Zafra, a reflection that parallels Rome.
"Each, in its own way, was unforgettable. It would be difficult to — Rome! By all means, Rome." - Audrey Hepburn
"When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome." - Miguel de Cervantes
"Wherever you go in Rome, it's like you're traveling back in time." - Anonymous
"What is more wonderful than the beauty of a building? The story behind it. And Rome has plenty of both." - Anonymous
"No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be." - Chuck Thompson, and Rome is always better than they say.
"The Pantheon is the oldest standing domed structure in Rome." - Ada Louise Huxtable
"Rome is the last word in everything." - Ruby Ross Wood
"Rome will exist as long as the Coliseum does; when the Coliseum falls, so will Rome; when Rome falls, so will the world." - Venerable Bede
"It's the eternal city, and it will remain eternal." - Richard Rogers
"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact." - Nicole Krauss, about how Rome can inspire.
"Rome was mud and smoky skies; the look of the city was a grey one. Stone palaces, houses of timber and clay, the amphitheatre, and the temples of Rome's gods, all were grey." - William Napier
"Rome was great in arms, in government, in law." - Goldwin Smith
"For me, Rome is the old center of the world." - Robert Indiana
"I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and none other, close with her, kiss her and mix her with me." - Algernon Charles Swinburne, about Rome.
"Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city." - Anatole Broyard
"But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn’t compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Rome is not outside me, but inside me... Her feverish sweetness, her tragic countryside, her own beauty and harmony, all these are mine, for my thought and my work." - Amedeo Modigliani
"If we could be reborn wherever we chose, how crowded Rome would be, populated by souls who had spent their previous lives longing to inhabit a villa on the Janiculum Hill." - Francine Prose
"The ancients of Rome and Greece knew how to live: Enjoy every day as if it was your last." - Bill Bryson
"You must serve your Roman master. He will not serve you." - John Acton
"She had always been fond of history, and here [in Rome] was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine." - Henry James
"Rome is not like any other city. It's a majestic museum, a living room to tiptoe through." - Alberto Sordi
"The thing I love about Rome is that is has so many layers. In it, you can follow anything that interests you: town planning, architecture, churches or culture. It's a city rich in antiquity and early Christian treasures, and just endlessly fascinating. There's nowhere else like it." - Claire Tomalin
"Rome has its corruptions, of course, but most Romans are innocents." - Matthew Pearl
"There are many things that one can do alone, and very nicely. In fact, there are some things that can be done only alone. But I think that being in Rome is not one of them." - Robert Hellenga
"A fool is one who admires other cities without visiting Rome." - Francesco Petrarca
"In Rome, the statues, in the fountains, the churches. A whole city of notions come to life." - Nicole Krauss
"When you are grown up and have children of your own, do please remember something important. A stodgy parent is not fun at all! What a child wants — and DESERVES — is a parent who is SPARKY!" - Roald Dahl, on living a life inspired, like one does in Rome.
"Rome was the war office of the Roman empire long before Julius Caesar ran a sword through anything but a neighbor's wife." - Robert Black
"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, speaking about Rome.
"The Colosseum is the most iconic symbol of Rome." - Sarah Poole
"Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time." - Richard Meier
"Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in snail design, and a mean temperature that brought out boils." - Iain Sinclair
"The thing about Rome is there's always too much to see. And everything you haven't seen, you feel you ought to have seen." - Richard Ford
"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, reflecting the sentiments of Rome.
"I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets." - John Glenn, a sentiment felt when roaming the streets of Rome.
"The city of Caesar, the city of Augustus, the city of the Popes... this is a record of human energy, human belief, human imagination, unparalleled in the world." - Robert Hughes, on Rome.
"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home." - James Michener, but Rome invites you to embrace all.
"I never weary of great churches. It is my favorite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral." - Robert Louis Stevenson, akin to the cathedrals of Rome.
"Travel brings power and love back into your life." - Rumi, especially when the destination is Rome.
"Rome is a broken mirror, the falling straps of a dress, a puzzle of astonishing complexity. It is an iceberg floating below our terrace, all its ballasts hidden beneath the surface." - Anthony Doerr
"Every one soon or late comes round by Rome." - Robert Browning
"Like a layer cake, Rome is rich with levels, built one upon another." - Margaret Stohl
"Life in Rome is life in a theater." - Eleanor Clark
"When I had an opportunity to go to Rome, it became a great influence on my life and work." - Val Kilmer
"I sometimes fancy I could pass my life in Rome without a single ennui." - Marguerite Blessington
"There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless." - Simone de Beauvoir, and the same goes for the air in Rome.
"In Rome, more than elsewhere, one feels that Catholicism is not only a religion but an empire." - Honoré de Balzac
"The Eternal City of Rome tells us that its age is its greatest dignity." - Petrarch
"Every one soon or late comes round by Rome." - Robert Browning
"Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world." - Francis Ford Coppola
"In Rome, more than in any other city, history is a present, palpable force." - Anonymous
"I see Rome as an African city." - Derek Walcott
"Rome is filled with ghosts. There's no place on earth more haunted." - Blake Nelson
"Rome is a place where you can forget about everything." - Alexey Vorobyov
"Rome itself; the mistress of the world. The scene neither of one lamentable thing nor of one only, but of many a pride, and many a sorrow." - Charles Dickens
"The traveler who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which they inspired." - Edward Gibbon
"Rome is a place almost worn out by being looked at, a city collapsing under the weight of reference." - Graham Joyce
"There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but only one view." - Harry Millner, a view that is best from Rome's hills.
"Rome was not built for trafficking but for glory." - Sebastiano Serlio
"Rome is a city where in every corner you have a reminder of the sacred world. That's why I have sacred music, minimalist sacred music, which is also music I like, because at the end of the day, that's what I want to do." - Paolo Sorrentino
"Rome is a place of extremes, the center of the world or a forgotten outpost." - Anonymous
"I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble." - Augustus Caesar
"Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness." - Livy
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls — the World." - Lord Byron
"Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!" - Lord Byron
"From the dome of St. Peter's one can see every notable object in Rome... He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe." - Mark Twain
"Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome." - Robert De Niro
"Rome holds my psyche in balance. Whenever I'm there, it's like a holiday." - Giambattista Valli
"Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?" - Will Rogers
"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville." - Flannery O'Connor
"Rome is not outside me, but inside me... Her feverish sweetness, her tragic countryside, her own beauty and harmony, all these are mine, for my thought and my work." - Amedeo Modigliani
"All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome." - Tacitus
"Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar." - George Eliot
"Rome was great in arms, in government, in law." - Goldwin Smith
"In Rome, I really wanted an Audrey Hepburn Roman Holiday experience, but the Trevi Fountain was crowded, there was a McDonald's at the base of the Spanish Steps, and the ruins smelled like cat pee because of all the strays." - Gayle Forman
"The Piazza Navona is a parade of phantasms: monsters, devils and marble divinities that laugh at the Popes and the politics of the modern ages, confident in their power and the spell they cast." - Roberto Calasso
"I found more joy in sorrow / Than you could find in joy." - Sara Teasdale, describing the poignant beauty of Rome.
"For a century, the popes in Rome put our ancestors to death if they were caught with the Bible in their own language." - Richard L. Evans, describing the tumultuous history of Rome.
"Rome is a place where the past and the present live side by side." - Anonymous
"Rome was not built in a day, but it sure was beautiful when finished." - Anonymous
"Rome's beauty awakens the soul to act." - Dante Alighieri
"From the greatness of Rome to its downfall, it remains a testament to the human spirit." - Anonymous
"To visit Rome is to encounter the centuries, to walk hand in hand with history." - Anonymous
"Rome, once the seat of ancient empire, stands undiminished, if not enhanced in power and prestige." - Anonymous
"In Rome, ancient meets modern, creating a fusion that's unparalleled." - Anonymous
"The air of Rome is infused with history, culture, and an undeniable energy." - Anonymous
"When one is in Rome, one must not waste time, for there's so much to see, so much to embrace." - Anonymous
"Rome is not just a city. It's an experience, an emotion, a chapter in the story of your life." - Anonymous
"Rome is like a dream, in every corner and every street, history comes alive." - Anonymous
Drawing from the vast tapestry of sentiments expressed in "Quotes About Rome," it becomes abundantly clear that Rome isn't just a city; it's an enduring testament to human history, achievement, and emotion.
This collection captures the spirit of an empire, the beauty of architecture, and the echoes of time itself. Whether through the eyes of poets, leaders, or everyday wanderers, Rome's allure remains timeless, forever imprinted in the heartbeats of those who've walked its ancient streets.
