There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery. Cesare Pavese More Quotes by Cesare Pavese More Quotes From Cesare Pavese 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 pain love men Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue. Cesare Pavese political giving hands The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal. Cesare Pavese brutal time men Woman gives herself as a prize to the weak and as a prop to the strong and no man ever has what he should. Cesare Pavese strong giving men One stops being a child when one realizes that telling one's trouble does not make it any better. Cesare Pavese realizing doe children To know the world, one must construct it Cesare Pavese constructs wisdom world 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 old-wounds dark night But all years are stupid. It's only when they're over that they become interesting. Cesare Pavese stupid years interesting Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time - is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next. Cesare Pavese fighting air mean Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference. Cesare Pavese indifference behaviour perfect Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world. Cesare Pavese pay-the-price luxury life No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide. Cesare Pavese suicidal suicide reason The man who cannot live with charity, sharing other men's pain, is punished by feeling his own with intolerable anguish. Cesare Pavese pain feelings men We obtain things when we no longer want them. Cesare Pavese want There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot, do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you, and so relieve the pain of the first. Cesare Pavese pain suffering art The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. Cesare Pavese party time life 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 levels fundamentals At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death. Cesare Pavese suicide death children No matter how much a young man likes to think for himself, he is always trying to model himself on some abstract pattern largely derived from the example of the world around him. And a man, no matter how conservative, shows his own worth by his personal deviation from that pattern. Cesare Pavese always-trying men thinking 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 hiding mean lying
