Category: Notes

Every Virtuous Relationship That Can Exist…

By Leopardi:

Chi ha disperato di se stesso, o per qualunque ragione, si ama meno vivamente, è meno invidioso, odia meno i suoi simili, ed è quindi più suscettibile di amicizia per questa parte, o almeno in minor contraddizione con lei. Chi più si ama meno può amare.

In fact, every virtuous relationship that can exist between two human beings is based on what goes against self-love, that is, modesty, benevolence and selflessness. Without these virtues, there is nothing to be done, and relationships will never be anything more than a terrain of interests and disputes in which those involved gain far less than they can imagine.

Societies Have to Revalidate the Foundations…

Periodically, over the space of a few generations, societies have to revalidate the foundations bequeathed by tradition, and they do not do so until they go through the very same crises that led to the need for their establishment. The objective, to pacify understandings and avoid new crises, is achieved only until those who have kept it in their memory die, or not at all. History, in this respect, only demonstrates its failure to a few intellectuals.

The Writer Whose Life Is Involuntarily Invaded…

Despite the general recommendation, the writer whose life is involuntarily invaded and disturbed by politics has not the right, but the duty to insert politics into his literary work. This is, in short, an obligation to future generations, to whom he must pass on the flavor of his personal experience. Not to do so is to deny oneself. A political prisoner, then, even if he is against it, has lost the right to remain silent about the oppression he has suffered, and it is precisely he who has the mission of giving the lines a political flavor, because it is precisely he who has the the support of a circumstance that all the others don’t have.

It Is True That Study Often Uncovers…

It is true that study often uncovers the complexity of subjects that the average man does not even suspect are complex. This discovery, however, although it may rightly call for caution, should never have a paralyzing effect on the mind, which will ultimately have to decide. The same skepticism used by some as an inductive tool for the best choice is used by others as a shield—a very effective one—for an innate inability to choose.