The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies.
CESARE PAVESEWill power is only the tensile strength of one’s own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.
More Cesare Pavese Quotes
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All our “most sacred affections ” are merely prosaic habit.
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We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.
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A decision, an action, are infallible omens of what we shall do another time, not for any vague, mystic, astrological reason but because they result from an automatic reaction that will repeat itself.
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Life is not a search for experience, but for ourselves. Having discovered our own fundamental level we realize that it conforms to our own destiny and we find peace.
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We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God.
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Misfortunes cannot suffice to make a fool into an intelligent man.
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Many men on the point of an edifying death would be furious if they were suddenly restored to health.
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Artists are the monks of the bourgeois state.
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The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal.
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We commit two wrongs when we fail to right a wrong.
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I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.
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Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.
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What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.
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It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.
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Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.
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Things are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it only then for the first time.
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Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
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Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.
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Not believing in anything is also a religion .
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The real affliction of old age is remorse.
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Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
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You’ve got to understand life, understand it when you’re young.
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What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.
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In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning to his life. The profession of enthusiasm is the most sickening of all insincerities.
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The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.
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One must look for one thing only, to find many.
CESARE PAVESE