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We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word.

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
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Writer
Word
Someone
Might
Take
Must
Even
Never
Disheartened
Fun

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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In the mental disturbance and effort of writing, what sustains you is the certainty that on every page there is something left unsaid.
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Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.
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Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.
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If it were possible to have a life absolutely free from every feeling of sin, what a terrifying vacuum it would be.
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I am the captain of my destiny, I do not abandon the ship in hard times, But, I do have sense enough not to go down with the ship.
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When you dream, you are an author, but you do not know how it will end.
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The problems that agitate one generation are exstinguished for the next, not because they have been solved but because the general lack of interest sweeps them away.
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We do not free ourselves from something by avoiding it, but only by living though it.
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A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
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You don't remember days, you remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
Cesare Pavese
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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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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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War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values.
Cesare Pavese
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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