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The only joy in the world is to begin.

Cesare Pavese

The act the act must not be a revenge. It must be a calm, weary renunciation, a closing of accounts, a private, rhythmic deed. The last remark.
CESARE PAVESE

Account Act Private Remark Revenge Yourself
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
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
But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever.
CESARE PAVESE

Purpose Reality Service Suffering Truth
Things are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it only then for the first time.
CESARE PAVESE

Memories Remember Reveal Time
From someone who doesn’t want to share your destiny, you should neither accept a cigarette.
CESARE PAVESE

Acceptance Destiny Share Yourself
The real affliction of old age is remorse.
CESARE PAVESE

Affliction Age Old Reality
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.
CESARE PAVESE

Action Decision Reaction Repeat Result Time
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
To know the world, one must construct it.
CESARE PAVESE

Construction World
There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
CESARE PAVESE

Alive Happiness Misery
Artists are the monks of the bourgeois state.
CESARE PAVESE

Artist Monk State
You’ve got to understand life, understand it when you’re young.
CESARE PAVESE

Life Understand Young Yourself
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
Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
CESARE PAVESE

Occupation Patient Terrible
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

The only joy in the world is to begin.

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The only joy in the world is to begin.

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