Giacomo Leopardi Quotes
Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.
No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.
He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.
It's interesting to observe that almost all truly worthy men have simple manners, and that simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth
What do you do there, moon, in the sky? Tell me what you do, silent moon. When evening comes you rise and go contemplating wastelands; then you set.
Irresolute men are sometimes very persistent in their undertakings, because if they give up their designs they would have to make a second resolution.
Men do not so much hate an evil-doer, or evil itself, as they hate the man who calls evil by its real name.
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.
The world laughs at things it would really prefer to admire, and like Aesop's fox it criticizes things it covets.
The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one s own knowledge is not to overstep them.
Men are ready to suffer anything from others or from heaven itself, provided that, when it comes to words, they are untouched.
Every man remembers his childhood as a kind of mythical age, just as every nation's childhood is its mythical age.
If the best company is that which we leave feeling most satisfied with ourselves, it follows that it is the company we leave most bored.
There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.
The commonplace expression that life is nothing but a play is verified above all in this: the world speaks absolutely consistently in one way and acts absolutely consistently in another.
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.
It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist.
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.
The thought that really crushes us is the thought of the futility of life of which death is the visible manifestation.
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!
The artist's conception of his art or the scientist's of his science is usually as great as his conception of his own worth is small.
Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.
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.
We remember childhood as the fabulous years of our lives, and nations remember their childhood as fabulous years.
Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age.
It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous but rather the studious way we try to hide them and our desire to act as if they did not exist.
I get up and I bless the light thin clouds and the first twittering of birds and the breathing air and smiling face of the hills.
He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much the master of the world as he who is ready to die.
Seated here in contemplations lost, my thought discovers vaster space beyond, supernal silence and unfathomed peace
The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one's own knowledge is not to overstep them.
