550 Quotes by Italo Calvino

D'altro canto, c'era sempre la morale che bisogna continuare a fare quanto si può, giorno per giorno; nella politica come in tutto il resto della vita, per chi non è un balordo, contano quei due principî lì: non farsi mai troppe illusioni e non smettere di credere che ogni cosa che fai potrà servire.

The word connects the visible trace with the invisible thing, the absent thing, the thing that is desired or feared, like a frail emergency bridge flung over an abyss.

For Leopardi, unhappy hedonist that he was, what is unknown is always more attractive than what is known; hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience. Man therefore projects his desire into infinity and feels pleasure only when he is able to imagine that this pleasure has no end.

although science interests me just because of its efforts to escape from anthropomorphic knowledge, I am nonetheless convinced that our imagination cannot be anything but anthropomorphic.

In fact the problem Leopardi is facing is speculative and metaphysical, a problem in the history of philosophy from Parmenides to Descartes and Kant: the relationship between the idea of infinity as absolute space and absolute time, and our empirical knowledge of space and time.

La ciudad, para el que pasa sin entrar, es una, y otra para el que está preso deella y no sale; una es la ciudad a la que se llega la primera vez, otra la que se dejapara no volver; cada una merece un nombre diferente; quizá de Irene he hablado yabajo otros nombres; quizá no he hablado sino de Irene.

Bütün öykülerin ana fikrinin iki çehresi vardır: hayatın devamı; ölümün kaçınılmazlığı.

No, writing has not changed me for the better at all; I have merely used up part of my restless, conscienceless youth. What value to me will these discontented pages be? The book, the vow, are worth no more than one is worth oneself. One can never be sure of saving one's soul by writing. One may go writing on and on with a soul already lost.

Déblayer la neige n'est pas un jeu d'enfant, surtout quand on a l'estomac presque vide, mais pour Marcovaldo, la neige était comme une amie, comme un élément qui annulait les murs qui emprisonnaient sa vie.