“He who travels much has this advantage over others – that the things he remembers soon become remote, so that in a short time they acquire the vague and poetical quality which is only given to other things by time. He who has not traveled at all has this disadvantage – that all his memories are of things present somewhere, since the places with which all his memories are concerned are present.”
Giacomo Leopardi“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.”
Giacomo Leopardi“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.”
Giacomo Leopardi“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.”
Giacomo Leopardi“People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.”
Giacomo Leopardi“In all climates under all skies man's happiness is always somewhere else.”
Giacomo Leopardi“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.”
Giacomo Leopardi“You can be happy indeed if you have breathing space from pain.”
Giacomo Leopardi“The end of pain we take as happiness.”
Giacomo Leopardi“He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much the master of the world as he who is ready to die.”
Giacomo Leopardi“Seated here in contemplations lost, my thought discovers vaster space beyond, supernal silence and unfathomed peace”
Giacomo Leopardi