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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

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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
Pleasure
Desire
Futility
Enjoyment
Actual
Obsessed
Test
Tests
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More quotes by Cesare Pavese

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Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life. Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone.
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How can you have confidence in a woman who will not risk entrusting her whole life to you, day and night?
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To avenge a wrong done to you, is to rob yourself of the comfort of crying out against the injustice of it.
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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.
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Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
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No woman marries for money they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first.
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There is no finer revenge than that which others inflict on your enemy. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving you the role of a generous man.
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To know the world, one must construct it
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People who don't know any better will always be in the dark because the power lies in the hands of men who take good care that ordinary folk don't understand, in the hands, that is, of the government, of the clerical party, of the capitalists.
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Whatever people may say, the fastidious formal manner of the upper classes is preferable to the slovenly easygoing behaviour of the common middle class. In moments of crisis, the former know how to act, the latter become uncouth brutes.
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A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.
Cesare Pavese
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The problem is not the harshness of Fate, for anything we want strongly enough we get. The trouble is rather that when we have it we grow sick of it, and then we should never blame Fate, only our own desire.
Cesare Pavese
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We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.
Cesare Pavese
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There is something indecent in words .
Cesare Pavese
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We do not remember days, we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.
Cesare Pavese
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The real affliction of old age is remorse.
Cesare Pavese
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It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point.
Cesare Pavese
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Life without smoking is like the smoke without the roast.
Cesare Pavese
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A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.
Cesare Pavese