There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.
— Giacomo Leopardi
No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it.
Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.
No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.
People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.
Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.
Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age.
