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The man who cannot live with charity, sharing other men’s pain, is punished by feeling his own with intolerable anguish.

Cesare Pavese

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.
CESARE PAVESE

Descend Escape Sound
All our “most sacred affections ” are merely prosaic habit.
CESARE PAVESE

Affection Habit Scared
Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other’s sight, but in their own.
CESARE PAVESE

Love Lover Naked Sight
Life without smoking is like the smoke without the roast.
CESARE PAVESE

Absence Life Smoking
There is no finer revenge than that which others inflict on your enemy. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving you the role of a generous man.
CESARE PAVESE

Enemy Generosity Man Revenge Yourself
But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever.
CESARE PAVESE

Purpose Reality Service Suffering Truth
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.
CESARE PAVESE

Greatness Happiness Important Intensity Love Lover
It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.
CESARE PAVESE

Friendship Grief Herself Loss Stupidity Yourself
One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love – any love – reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.
CESARE PAVESE

Kill Love Naked Nothing Vulnerable Woman
But all years are stupid. It’s only when they’re over that they become interesting.
CESARE PAVESE

Interest Lost Stupidity Time Wisdom
Many men on the point of an edifying death would be furious if they were suddenly restored to health.
CESARE PAVESE

Death Furious Health Man Point Yourself
All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition.
CESARE PAVESE

Ambition Origin Sense Sin
The whole problem of life, then, is this: how to break out of one’s own loneliness, how to communicate with others.
CESARE PAVESE

Break Communication Life Lonely Problem
We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.
CESARE PAVESE

Goodness Thinking Work
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
CESARE PAVESE

Luxury Pay World
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.
CESARE PAVESE

Enjoyment Happiness Obsession Oneself

The man who cannot live with charity, sharing other men’s pain, is punished by feeling his own with intolerable anguish.

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The man who cannot live with charity, sharing other men’s pain, is punished by feeling his own with intolerable anguish.

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