Quotes from Giacomo Leopardi

may be known, but is in no way felt" (Z 1099) and the youthful illusions (l'inganno giovanile) that survive into old age (

Chi ha viaggiato, gode questo vantaggio, che le rimembranze che le sue sensazioni gli destano, sono spessissimo di cose lontane, e però tanto più vaghe, suscettibili di fare illusione, e poetiche.

filosofi in parole e in opere,

For Leopardi the ancients and orality, uniquely endowed with the capacity to keep memory alive, were in fact one and the same thing (Z 4270 and note 2

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires, along with desire's rewards.

What poets must seem to display, besides the objects imitated, is a beautiful negligence.

poets today have no other readers but persons who are educated and informed," but unfortunately "[t]oday every educated and informed man is unfailingly egoistic and philosophical, deprived of every noteworthy illusion, devoid of intense passions, and every woman likewise" (Z 2944–45).

he is one of those good teachers who "are capable of retracing in detail, and holding accurately in their minds the origins, progress, mode of development, in short, the history of their own notions and thoughts, their knowledge and their intellect" (Z 1376).

poetry returns to us from the depths of a wounded psyche, no longer in harmony with the world—and following this road we will meet up with Baudelaire and much of modern poetry.

Glorious ancestors, is there still hope for us? Are we not completely dead? Can you see the future? I'm exhausted, nothing shields me from suffering, the way ahead is dark, and all I see makes hope phantasmagorical.

There's no doubt war is a proper subject for the philosopher, partly because it gives rise to some of the greatest and most important upheavals, and then for its connections with endless ramifications of the theories of society, man, and other living beings.

Alle sembianze il Padre, alle amene sembianze eterno regno diè alle genti; e per virili imprese, per dotta lira o canto, virtù non luce in disadorno ammanto.

Dico che il mondo è una lega di birbanti contro gli uomini dabbene, di vili contro i generosi.

If content with himself and mankind, a man is never harsh or curt.

There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.

Since the world never faults a man who refuses to yield...it is generally recognized that weak men live in obedience to the world's will, while the strong obey only their own.

Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.

I find it awfully difficult to determine if the habit of talking about oneself at length runs contrary to the basic rules of propriety, or if instead the man exempt from this vice is rare.

Of men eternally dear! happy indeed If you have breathing-space From pain: blessed all the more If death should heal you of the pain you fear!

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.

I may be wrong, but it seems rare in our age to find a widely praised person whose own mouth is not the source of that praise.

No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it.

There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.

The end of pain we take as happiness.