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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.

Cesare Pavese

Hate is always a clash between our spirit and someone else’s body.
CESARE PAVESE

Body Hate Spirit
The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal.
CESARE PAVESE

Brutal Man Slow Time Willing
The problems that agitate one generation are exstinguished for the next, not because they have been solved but because the general lack of interest sweeps them away.
CESARE PAVESE

Generation Interest Problem Solve
Because, to despise money, one must have plenty of it.
CESARE PAVESE

Money Oneself
You don’t remember days, you remember moments.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Moments Remember Yourself
The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.
CESARE PAVESE

Art Believe Live Lying
Here’s the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition.
CESARE PAVESE

Act Ambition Beyond Difficult Pass Suicide
We like to have work to do, so as to have the right to rest.
CESARE PAVESE

Rest Right Work
But here’s the worst part: the trick to life lies in hiding from those we hold most dear how much they mean to is; if not, we’d lose them.
CESARE PAVESE

Hide Life Lose People Trick Worst
It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point.
CESARE PAVESE

Exception Life Live Point Yourself
For women, history does not exist. Murasaki, Sappho, and Madame Lafayette might be their own contemporaries.
CESARE PAVESE

Contemporary Existence History Woman
We want Realism’s wealth of experience and Symbolism’s depth of feeling. All art is a problem of balance between two opposites.
CESARE PAVESE

Balance Deep Feeling Opposite Problem Reality Wealth
I thought of how many places there are in the world that belong in this way to someone, who has it in his blood beyond anyone else’s understanding.
CESARE PAVESE

Blood Myself Place Thinking Understand World
We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word.
CESARE PAVESE

Feeling Heart Ourselves Word
A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself.
CESARE PAVESE

Born Love Thinking World
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
I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.
CESARE PAVESE

Company Evening Mirror Myself
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.
CESARE PAVESE

Drop End Life Party
Life without smoking is like the smoke without the roast.
CESARE PAVESE

Absence Life Smoking
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
No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
CESARE PAVESE

Goodness Reason Suicide
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
Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
CESARE PAVESE

Hands Mouth Ready Willing
There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
CESARE PAVESE

Alive Happiness Misery
When you dream, you are an author, but you do not know how it will end.
CESARE PAVESE

Author Dreams End Yourself
A corpse is what’s left after waking too often.
CESARE PAVESE

Body Death Wake
We never remember days, only moments.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Moments Remember

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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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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Popular Authors

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