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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
Find
Shall
Beneficence
Live
Pleasure
Customary
Men
Age
Ordained
Learn
Vivid
Living
Stolen
Nature
Incapable
Become
Enjoyment
Reason
Reasons

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There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.
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I find it awfully difficult to determine if the habit of talking about oneself at length runs contrary to the basic rules of propriety, or if instead the man exempt from this vice is rare.
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The thought that really crushes us is the thought of the futility of life of which death is the visible manifestation.
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In all climates, under all skies, man's happiness is always somewhere else.
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Ignorance is the greatest source of happiness.
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The old man, especially if he is in society in the privacy of his thoughts, though he may protest the opposite, never stops believing that, through some singular exception of the universal rule, he can in some unknown and inexplicable way still make an impression on women.
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It's interesting to observe that almost all truly worthy men have simple manners, and that simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth
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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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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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Man is almost always as wicked as his needs require.
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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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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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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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We remember childhood as the fabulous years of our lives, and nations remember their childhood as fabulous years.
Giacomo Leopardi
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A dictionary can embrace only a small part of the vast tapestry of a language.
Giacomo Leopardi
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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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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.
Giacomo Leopardi
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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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No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.
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Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.
Giacomo Leopardi