The Italian language is loaded with colourful (and downright bizarre) ways to express a point. Here are ten particularly imaginative pearls of wisdom.
What becomes of hasty cats? And why should you beware of giving anyone your finger?

We've done our best to render these very Italian proverbs into English, but sometimes one country's wisdom just doesn't translate. A ogni uccello il suo nido è bello. In English, the nearest meaning of this phrase is: "There's no place like home" - Dorothy's mantra in The Wizard of Oz. The literal translation from the Italian, however, is rather more poetic: "To every bird, his own nest is beautiful".