48 quotes found
“Nature, mother feared and wept for since the human family was born, marvel that cannot be praised, that bears and nurtures only to destroy, if dying young brings mortals pain, why let it come down ...”
“Rest for ever (heart) enoughHast thou throbbed. Nothing is worthThy agitations, nor of sighs is worthyThe earth. Bitterness and vexationIs life, never aught besides, and mire the world.Quiet thysel...”
“Leopardi is a poet who is very dark. It fascinates me that Mark Strand did that lovely, heartbreaking version of his poem. It's the way that Leopardi makes his incredibly courageous attempt, even t...”
“What is Leopardi's place in literature? That assigned to him by his countrymen is very high, higher than they would concede to any other Italian poet born since the close of the sixteenth century.”
“For him, death does not just end life; it nullifies life, and the fact that we are going to die is the only fact that matters. The key to the terrible power of his work is that we can never totally...”
“How should the endless rush of events not bring satiety, surfeit, loathing? So the boldest of us is ready perhaps at last to say from his heart with Giacomo Leopardi: Nothing lives that were worth ...”
“Nobody more than Leopardi could look disaster in the face, never denying that it was disaster, yet at the same time turning unhappiness itself into a colour or fragrance that would help you through...”
“Yet no one has so thoroughly and exhaustively handled this subject as, in our own day, Leopardi. He is entirely filled and penetrated by it: his theme is everywhere the mockery and wretchedness of ...”
