Quotes About Borgias

Through neglect, ignorance, or inability, the new intellectual Borgias cram hairballs down our throats and refuse us the convulsion that could make us well. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, the ancient knowledge that only by being truly sick can one regain health. Even beasts know when it is good and proper to throw up. Teach me how to be sick then, in the right time and place, so that I may again walk in the fields and with the wise and smiling dogs know enough to chew sweet grass.

No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.

The dark legend of the Borgias, having taken root in Italy, found a wider audience when religious reformers went forth in search of evidence not just that non-Italian popes were a bad idea but that the papacy was an evil institution, illegitimate, and inherently corrupt.

A precious liquid, a poison dearer than that of the Borgias - because it is made from our blood, our health, our sleep, and two-thirds of our love - we must be stingy with it.

Today, the Pope is only a religious figure. At the time of 'The Borgias,' he was also a political leader, a financial leader, and the head of an army. I think popes are much less relevant today than they were then.

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.

A precious liquid, a poison dearer than that of the Borgias — because it is made from our blood, our health, our sleep, and two-thirds of our love — we must be stingy with it.

'The Borgias' is quite good because it does stick quite steadfastly to historical fact, so a lot of people who are interested in the historical element will love watching it, but they were also a ridiculously dramatic family.

Only by judging the Borgias against their own times can they arouse our sympathy, and only if they arouse our sympathy can they be understood. Below