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Cesare Pavese
(9 Sep 1908 - 27 Aug 1950)
Italian poet, novelist and literary critic who translated many modern English language authors into Italian, and thus created a new appreciation in Italy of many American and British writers. The Moon and the Bonfires (1950) is considered the best of his own novels. He ended his own life, two weeks before age 42, but other significant works were published posthumously.
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Science Quotes by Cesare Pavese (12 quotes)
Chiodo scaccia chiodo, ma quattro chiodi fanno una croce.
One nail drives out another, but four nails make a cross.
One nail drives out another, but four nails make a cross.
— Cesare Pavese
His final comments on 16th August 1950, just a few days before his death, refer to his estimate of his own work. In Il mestiere di vivere (1947), 361. Translated as The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 19.
Le lezioni non si dànno, si prendono.
Lessons are not given. They are taken.
Lessons are not given. They are taken.
— Cesare Pavese
Diary entry for 18th Aug 1946, In Il mestiere di vivere (1947), 303. Translated as The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 296.
Perché la vita è dolore e l’amore godimento è un anestetico
Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.
Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.
— Cesare Pavese
In Il mestiere di vivere (1947), 78. Translated as The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 90.
Se è vero che ci si abitua al dolore, come mai con l’andare degli anni si soffre sempre di píu?
If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that, as the years go by, one always suffers more?
If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that, as the years go by, one always suffers more?
— Cesare Pavese
Diary entry for 21 Nov 1937, in Il mestiere di vivere (1947), 303. Translated as The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 70.
If it were possible to have a life absolutely free from every feeling of sin, what a terrifying vacuum it would be!
— Cesare Pavese
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 175.
Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.
— Cesare Pavese
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 56.
One stops being a child when one realizes that telling one’s trouble does not make it better.
— Cesare Pavese
Diary entry for 31 Oct 1937, The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 66.
Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference.
— Cesare Pavese
Diary entry for 21 Feb 1940, The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 169.
The girls are all giggling, then one girl suddenly remembers
the wild goat. Up there, on the hilltop, in the woods
and rocky ravines, the peasants saw him butting his head
against the trees, looking for the nannies. He’s gone wild,
and the reason why is this: if you don’t make an animal work,
if you keep him only for stud, he likes to hurt, he kills.
the wild goat. Up there, on the hilltop, in the woods
and rocky ravines, the peasants saw him butting his head
against the trees, looking for the nannies. He’s gone wild,
and the reason why is this: if you don’t make an animal work,
if you keep him only for stud, he likes to hurt, he kills.
— Cesare Pavese
From Poem, 'The Goat God', Hard Labor (1936, 1976), 10.
Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
— Cesare Pavese
…...
We do not remember days, we remember moments.
— Cesare Pavese
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 188.
Will power is only the tensile strength of one’s own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.
— Cesare Pavese
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 88.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
