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Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

Cesare Pavese

Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman.
CESARE PAVESE

Discussion Logic Philosophy Woman
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
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
The face of the night will be an old wound that reopens each evening, impassive and living. The distant silence will ache like a soul, mute, in the dark. We’ll speak to the night as it’s whispering softly.
CESARE PAVESE

Darkness Evening Face Night Old Soft Talk Whisper Wound
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
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
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
There is something indecent in words .
CESARE PAVESE

Decent Word
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.
CESARE PAVESE

Insecurity Man Ready Sacrifice Sick Yourself
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.
CESARE PAVESE

Destiny Discover Experience Life Ourselves Peace Search
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
What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.
CESARE PAVESE

Access Desire Oneself Possession Woman Worth
The world, the future, is now within you as your past, as experience, skill in technique, and the rich, everlasting mystery is found to be childish you that, at the time, you made no effort to possess.
CESARE PAVESE

Effort Experience Future Past Skills Technique World Yourself
You don’t remember days, you remember moments.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Moments Remember Yourself
A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.
CESARE PAVESE

Clear Conscience Spirit Suffering Thinking World
A corpse is what’s left after waking too often.
CESARE PAVESE

Body Death Wake
Death is repose, but the thought of death disturbs all repose.
CESARE PAVESE

Death Disturb Repose
There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
CESARE PAVESE

Alive Happiness Misery
The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.
CESARE PAVESE

Art Believe Live Lying
All our “most sacred affections ” are merely prosaic habit.
CESARE PAVESE

Affection Habit Scared
The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.
CESARE PAVESE

Beginning Heart Night Suffering
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.
CESARE PAVESE

Drop End Life Party
Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.
CESARE PAVESE

Addition Complication Live Mistake 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
Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one’s own pleasure is shared.
CESARE PAVESE

Happiness Love Poetry Remember Share Writing
The real affliction of old age is remorse.
CESARE PAVESE

Affliction Age Old Reality
We commit two wrongs when we fail to right a wrong.
CESARE PAVESE

Commitment Failure Wrong

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

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Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

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