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
Pleasure
Desire
Futility
Enjoyment
Actual
Obsessed
Test
Tests
Longer

More quotes by Cesare Pavese

Image
Don't mix wine and women.
Cesare Pavese
Image
The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
Cesare Pavese
Image
We do not remember days, we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
Image
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.
Cesare Pavese
Image
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
Image
We obtain things when we no longer want them.
Cesare Pavese
Image
No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
Cesare Pavese
Image
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
Image
How can you have confidence in a woman who will not risk entrusting her whole life to you, day and night?
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
Love is the cheapest of religions.
Cesare Pavese
Image
You don't remember days, you remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
Image
The only joy in the world is to begin.
Cesare Pavese
Image
I thought of how many places there are in the world that belong in this way to someone, who has it in his blood beyond anyone else's understanding.
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
Image
Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.
Cesare Pavese
Image
One must look for one thing only, to find many.
Cesare Pavese
Image
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.
Cesare Pavese
Image
At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
Cesare Pavese
Image
We commit two wrongs when we fail to right a wrong.
Cesare Pavese