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It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if he has power to do so, according to his sense of his own destiny.

Cesare Pavese

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
CESARE PAVESE

Hands Mouth Ready Willing
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
Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.
CESARE PAVESE

Combination Happiness Writing Yourself
Will power is only the tensile strength of one’s own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.
CESARE PAVESE

Power Single Strength Willing
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
You don’t remember days, you remember moments.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Moments Remember Yourself
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
There comes a day when, for someone who has persecuted us, we feel only indifference, a weariness at his stupidity. Then we forgive him.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Feeling Forgiveness Himself Stupidity
If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that as the years go one always suffers more? No, they are not mad, those people who amuse themselves, enjoy life, travel, make love, fight they are not mad. We should like to do the same ourselves.
CESARE PAVESE

Enjoyment Life Mad Ourselves People Suffering True
Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.
CESARE PAVESE

Activity Time
What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.
CESARE PAVESE

Beyond Lying Ocean Reach World
But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever.
CESARE PAVESE

Purpose Reality Service Suffering Truth
We commit two wrongs when we fail to right a wrong.
CESARE PAVESE

Commitment Failure Wrong
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
There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
CESARE PAVESE

Bored Exception Life Mercy
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

It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if he has power to do so, according to his sense of his own destiny.

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It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if he has power to do so, according to his sense of his own destiny.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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