Quote

It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it.

Cesare Pavese

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Cesare Pavese
Age: 41 †
Born: 1908
Born: September 9
Died: 1950
Died: August 27
Biographer
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Editor
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Enjoyment
Actual
Obsessed
Test
Tests
Longer
Pleasure
Desire
Futility

More quotes by Cesare Pavese

Image
I was happy enough I knew that during the night the whole city might go up in flames and all its people be killed, but the ravines, houses, and footpaths would wake in the morning calm and unchanged.
Cesare Pavese
Image
In the mental disturbance and effort of writing, what sustains you is the certainty that on every page there is something left unsaid.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Don't you know that what happens to you once always happens again? You always react in the same way to the same thing. It's no accident when you make a mess. Then you do it again. It's called destiny.
Cesare Pavese
Image
A decision, an action, are infallible omens of what we shall do another time, not for any vague, mystic, astrological reason but because they result from an automatic reaction that will repeat itself.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
Cesare Pavese
Image
You don't remember days, you remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Don't mix wine and women.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference.
Cesare Pavese
Image
One must look for one thing only, to find many.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.
Cesare Pavese
Image
No woman marries for money they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Certainly, to have a woman who waits at home for you, who will sleep with you, gives a warm feeling like having something you must say it makes you glow, keeps you company, helps you to live.
Cesare Pavese
Image
When a man mourns for someone who has played him false, it is not for love of her, but for his own humiliation at not having deserved her trust.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Many men on the point of an edifying death would be furious if they were suddenly restored to health.
Cesare Pavese
Image
In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning to his life. The profession of enthusiasm is the most sickening of all insincerities.
Cesare Pavese
Image
What is to come will emerge only after long suffering, long silence.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
Cesare Pavese
Image
The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows.
Cesare Pavese
Image
Will power is only the tensile strength of one's own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.
Cesare Pavese