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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.

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
Contrary
Propriety
Men
Oneself
Runs
Rules
Vice
Habit
Rare
Instead
Length
Talking
Vices
Difficult
Basic
Exempt
Running
Determine
Awfully

More quotes by Giacomo Leopardi

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The artist's conception of his art or the scientist's of his science is usually as great as his conception of his own worth is small.
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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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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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He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.
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The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion.
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A dictionary can embrace only a small part of the vast tapestry of a language.
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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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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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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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People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.
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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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We remember childhood as the fabulous years of our lives, and nations remember their childhood as fabulous years.
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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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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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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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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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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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Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.
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