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Lessons are not given, they are taken.

Cesare Pavese

The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows.
CESARE PAVESE

Action Fools Himself Man Practice
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
To avenge a wrong done to you, is to rob yourself of the comfort of crying out against the injustice of it.
CESARE PAVESE

Comfortable Cry Injustice Wrong Yourself
The man who cannot live with charity, sharing other men’s pain, is punished by feeling his own with intolerable anguish.
CESARE PAVESE

Angry Charity Himself Live Man Pain Share
Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be “lifelong”? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?
CESARE PAVESE

Love Man Operation Relationship True Wake Up
Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
CESARE PAVESE

Occupation Patient Terrible
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
We like to have work to do, so as to have the right to rest.
CESARE PAVESE

Rest Right Work
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
Lessons are not given, they are taken.
CESARE PAVESE

Knowledge Lesson Wisdom
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
Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
CESARE PAVESE

Hands Mouth Ready Willing
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 PAVESE

Art Believe Live Lying Recognition
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

Action Destiny Fate Himself Reaction
Misfortunes cannot suffice to make a fool into an intelligent man.
CESARE PAVESE

Enough Fools Fortune Intelligence Man
When you dream, you are an author, but you do not know how it will end.
CESARE PAVESE

Author Dreams End Yourself

Lessons are not given, they are taken.

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Lessons are not given, they are taken.

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