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Nature, with her customary beneficence, has ordained that man shall not learn how to live until the reasons for living are stolen from him, that he shall find no enjoyment until he has become incapable of vivid pleasure.

Giacomo Leopardi

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Giacomo Leopardi
Age: 38 †
Born: 1798
Born: June 29
Died: 1837
Died: June 14
Essayist
Literary Critic
Philologist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
Writer
Giacomo
conte Leopardi
Cosimo Papareschi
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi
Giàcomo Leopardi
Reason
Reasons
Find
Shall
Beneficence
Live
Pleasure
Customary
Men
Age
Ordained
Learn
Vivid
Living
Stolen
Nature
Incapable
Become
Enjoyment

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Freedom is the dream you dream While putting thought in chains again --
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Everything since Homer has improved, except poetry.
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Ignorance is the greatest source of happiness.
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The greater part of the people we assign to educate our sons we know for certain are not educated. Yet we do not doubt that they can give what they have not received, a thing which cannot be otherwise acquired.
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The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion.
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Every man remembers his childhood as a kind of mythical age, just as every nation's childhood is its mythical age.
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Irresolute men are sometimes very persistent in their undertakings, because if they give up their designs they would have to make a second resolution.
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The end of pain we take as happiness.
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A dictionary can embrace only a small part of the vast tapestry of a language.
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It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist.
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We remember childhood as the fabulous years of our lives, and nations remember their childhood as fabulous years.
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No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it.
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I may be wrong, but it seems rare in our age to find a widely praised person whose own mouth is not the source of that praise.
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Man is almost always as wicked as his needs require.
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Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes away good things, it takes away also the desire for them. Old age is the supreme evil, because it deprives us of all pleasures, leaving us only the appetite for them, and it brings with it all sufferings. Nevertheless, we fear death, and we desire old age.
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Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.
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Since the world never faults a man who refuses to yield...it is generally recognized that weak men live in obedience to the world's will, while the strong obey only their own.
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People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.
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There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.
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The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.
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