How to best counter the ruy Lopez and Italian game

My brother plays this against me a lot. Is there a best way to beat it?

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5
2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key
3. Castle
4. Connect your rooks

Tactics...tactics...tactics...

The objective of development is about improving the value of your pieces by increasing the importance of their roles. Well-developed pieces have more fire-power than undeveloped pieces and they do more in helping you gain control.

Now we will look at 5 practical things you can do to help you achieve your development objective.

They are:

1. Give priority to your least active pieces.

• Which piece needs to be developed (which piece is the least active)
• Where should it go (where can its role be maximized)

2. Exchange your least active pieces for your opponent’s active pieces.
3. Restrict the development of your opponent’s pieces.
4. Neutralize your opponent’s best piece.
5. Secure strong squares for your pieces.

Don’t help your opponent develop.

There are 2 common mistakes whereby you will simply be helping your opponent to develop:

1. Making a weak threat that can easily be blocked
2. Making an exchange that helps your opponent to develop a piece

Pre Move Checklist:

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.
2. Look for forcing moves: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) as this will force you look at, and see the entire board.
3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.
4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.
5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

Yup, that just about sums it up

Some of us think that it can be useful to use a book like First Steps: 1 e4 e5
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7790.pdf
as a source of games with explanations. Might be a good idea to first read Discovering Chess Openings.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

dont play 1...e5

Its a fine move, no problems with it. Plus many players only know e5 theory

I thought you may have been being cheeky, but the ... was in the wrong place. ....Dont play e5 would've clued me I better. And I still like e5, as I am a firm believer in a certain school of chess, the Modenese School, where the idea is just to develop first and all out attack, and most of the other good openings loose to much time, or are too slow, and thus I can't develop fast enough to go with my style of play.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_chess here is an article about the schools of chess, if you wish to find the one you fit into

Its a wikipedia article. What do you expect? Yes there is overlap, but it discussed the main features of each school.

Philidor: Pawn structure and Mobility in pawns

Modenesean: Rapid Development and aggressive attacks

English: Preparing a strong position, then going for the kill.

Romantic: Sacrificing material in order to gain attacking chances against the king. The difference between this and the Modesese is that moving pawns was slow, and not developing a piece in the Modenesean eyes, thus unless directly (not through compensation) supporting the attack, it wasn't used, but there is overlap.

Classical: The idea of not going for the attack, rather slowly bettering your position, making sure you won't loose to attacks, and winning a better endgame.

Hypermodern: Not directly controlling the center, rather developing minor pieces then going for pawn breaks.

Although the Soviet looks like a mesh of the rest.

Its a fine article. Just because a lot of chess principles over lap its bad? thats ridiculous ( just like the fried liver in case Ghost of Pushwood comes by) It pointed out those who followed the doctrines, and the ideas behind them. Simple as that 

It does mention that schools are falling out of use, so I agree, I read it as it was interesting.

Yes, learn how to play chess.

"... Staunton … has accepted the challenge, conditionally that the terms of play are such as he can agree to without infraction of his present literary engagements. As there appears every disposition on the part of [Morphy] to meet [Staunton's] wishes in this respect the match will probably take place in London shortly after the Birmingham Chess Meeting. …" - Illustrated London News, July 10, 1858

At least Staunton designed nice looking chess pieces. 

In view of what had been proclaimed publicly, I see nothing pushy, mad, or obsessive about inquiries from Morphy as the time of the Birmingham tournament approached.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79504

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=82130

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79263

With the Ruy Lopez, a few things to note after white has played Bb5.

1. The morphy defense is my preferred reply, but it's important to play a6 then b5 right after each other. Blacks pawn break through will likely be on c5, so these are good moves to play, and playing them BEFORE white has managed to play c3 will mean he wastes a tempo putting his bishop on b3 when he really wants to park it straight on on c2.

2. Attack the e4 pawn early before white castles with Nf6. White really wants to play d4, and ideally he wants to play d2-d4 to save a tempo, if you attack the e4 pawn, once again, you get him to waste a tempo by playing d3 to protect it. You must do it before white castles, as white can win back the pawn by playing Re1, where he will be attacking the unprotected knight, which has to move, and the pawn behind it twice (with his knight on f3 and his rook).

3. don't play Bb4, white's b1 knight is not usually a priority to develop as it doesn't come out with much threat due to black not really being able to get much control over d5. letting him develop it to block the bishop from the rook is just letting him get a piece out he wanted out but didn't know when to do so. (white usually plays  Nd2 > Nf1 > Ng3, 3 moves to get the knight somewhere useful) The bishop has nothing to do there after that beyond being traded for a pawn on c3 (white says "thanks, that makes my center even stronger") and it can be kicked any time with a3 which white will be happy to play to start expanding on the queenside. 

For study you could read about the Marshall attack, that's a gambit response to Ruy Lopez if white hasn't played h3 that leads to black seizing the initiative. There are some knight and bishop moves on the queenside that aren't obvious, (I'm sure some involve putting the knight on it's original square to re-maneuver, these can be handy to know) and if you want to look at how the Ruy Lopez can be played to maximum effect and what to watch for Karpov games are good.

In many books, one will find:

yeah, I don't know every variation/move order or line, look at my rating! These are pointers.

I remembered something though, and that's perhaps the most important moves black should know he has in the opening, and that's Qd4. Quite a lot I see black players play d6, they're scared if white takes the knight on c6 they lose their pawn (1...bxc6 recapturing the bishop 2. Nxe5).

Black should always be aware he has Qd4 if white does this which will attack the knight AND the pawn and win back the pawn with check. This does pretty much force a queen trade which may not be to everyone's taste but it's not the game white was looking for. Obviously be careful as once white has played Nc3 or d3 or anything protecting the pawn this doesn't work.