Quote

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.

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
Talk
Tempestuous
Talking
Vent
Give
Lonely
Giving
Inner
Writing
Seek
Men
Simply
Life
Company
Anyone

More quotes by Cesare Pavese

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When a woman marries she belongs to another man and when she belongs to another man there is nothing more you can say to her.
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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.
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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.
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There is something indecent in words .
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Woman gives herself as a prize to the weak and as a prop to the strong and no man ever has what he should.
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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.
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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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Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.
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What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.
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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.
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Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends
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.
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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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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
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Love is the cheapest of religions.
Cesare Pavese
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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.
Cesare Pavese
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Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.
Cesare Pavese
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When you dream, you are an author, but you do not know how it will end.
Cesare Pavese
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You've got to understand life, understand it when you're young.
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Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
Cesare Pavese