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Giovanni Papini

Giovanni Papini Biography

Journalist

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“Life to be bearable must be lived intensely. Through it a continuous stream of emotion passes. Though that emotion is ever changing as flowing water changes, it at least bears us along on a current that gives the illusion of continuity and permanence. But analyze life, tear its trappings off, lay it bare with thought, with logic, with philosophy, and its emptiness is revealed as a bottomless pit; its nothingness frankly confesses to nothingness, and Despair comes to perch in the soul.”

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Author:Giovanni Papini
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“Cât timp așteaptă ceva din partea universului, omul e un negustor care umblă să primească, care schimbă bani și face troc, și se înfurie când dă greș, și se sinucide când nu i se dă ce e al lui, dacă polițele nu-i sunt plătite, dacă încasările sunt mai mici decât cheltuielile. Dar omul care a renunțat la orice rasplată, care lucrează pentru ceea ce e sortit pieirii știind ca totul va pieri, acela e singurul om vrednic, cu adevărat vrednic de a locui împacat in acest univers. El singur e nobil in fața samsarilor care-l înconjoară, chiar dacă aceștia au scris pe firmele pravăliilor lor numele cele mai pure, mai ideale, mai metafizice.”

UniverseDestinyHuman NatureNothingness
Book:Un uomo finito
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“El cielo es una injuria perpetua e insoportable. Las estrellas no me conocen y yo no podré nunca hacer nada de ellas ni contra ellas. Cuando he sabido a cuántos millares de años de luz distan de mí, y cuántos siglos emplea su claridad para llegar a la Tierra, no he hecho más que dar forma aritmética a mi rabia. Yo siento el cielo como algo extraño, remoto, esto es, enemigo. Los cometas que, sin un objeto razonable, arrastran su cola por el infinito, no me dicen nada que me consuele. Las nebulosas, amontonamientos confusos de polvo cósmico, me exasperan como todas las cosas informes no terminadas. En lo que se refiere a los planetas y a los satélites, aduladores extintos que dan vueltas para obtener la limosna de un poco de luz, me causan repugnancia y despecho.”

ScienceSkyPlanetsCieloBest Quote EverPlanetas
Book:Gog
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“I was never a child; I never had a childhood. I cannot count among my memories warm, golden days of childish intoxication, long joyous hours of innocence, or the thrill of discovering the universe anew each day. I learned of such things later on in life from books. Now I guess at their presence in the children I see. I was more than twenty when I first experienced something similar in my self, in chance moments of abandonment, when I was at peace with the world. Childhood is love; childhood is gaiety; childhood knows no cares. But I always remember myself, in the years that have gone by, as lonely, sad, and thoughtful. Ever since I was a little boy I have felt tremendously alone―and "peculiar". I don't know why. It may have been because my family was poor or because I was not born the way other children are born; I cannot tell. I remember only that when I was six or seven years old a young aunt of mind called me vecchio―"old man," and the nickname was adopted by all my family. Most of the time I wore a long, frowning face. I talked very little, even with other children; compliments bored me; baby-talk angered me. Instead of the noisy play of the companions of my boyhood I preferred the solitude of the most secluded corners of our dark, cramped, poverty-stricken home. I was, in short, what ladies in hats and fur coats call a "bashful" or a "stubborn" child; and what our women with bare heads and shawls, with more directness, call a rospo―a "toad." They were right. I must have been, and I was, utterly unattractive to everybody. I remember, too, that I was well aware of the antipathy I aroused. It made me more "bashful," more "stubborn," more of a "toad" than ever. I did not care to join in the games played by other boys, but preferred to stand apart, watching them with jealous eyes, judging them, hating them. It wasn't envy I felt at such times: it was contempt; it was scorn. My warfare with men had begun even then and even there. I avoided people, and they neglected me. I did not love them, and they hated me. At play in the parks some of the boys would chase me; others would laugh at me and call me names. At school they pulled my curls or told the teachers tales about me. Even on my grandfather's farm in the country peasant brats threw stones at me without provocation, as if they felt instinctively that I belonged to some other breed.”

ChildhoodOstracism
Book:Un uomo finito
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“I was never a child; I never had a childhood. I cannot count among my memories warm, golden days of childish intoxication, long joyous hours of innocence, or the thrill of discovering the universe anew each day. I learned of such things later on in life from books. Now I guess at their presence in the children I see. I was more than twenty when I first experienced something similar in my self, in chance moments of abandonment, when I was at peace with the world. Childhood is love; childhood is gaiety; childhood knows no cares. But I always remember myself, in the years that have gone by, as lonely, sad, and thoughtful. Ever since I was a little boy I have felt tremendously alone―and "peculiar". I don't know why. It may have been because my family was poor or because I was not born the way other children are born; I cannot tell. I remember only that when I was six or seven years old a young aunt of mind called me [i]vecchio[/i]―"old man," and the nickname was adopted by all my family. Most of the time I wore a long, frowning face. I talked very little, even with other children; compliments bored me; baby-talk angered me. Instead of the noisy play of the companions of my boyhood I preferred the solitude of the most secluded corners of our dark, cramped, poverty-stricken home. I was, in short, what ladies in hats and fur coats call a "bashful" or a "stubborn" child; and what our women with bare heads and shawls, with more directness, call a [i]rospo[/i]―a "toad." They were right. I must have been, and I was, utterly unattractive to everybody. I remember, too, that I was well aware of the antipathy I aroused. It made me more "bashful," more "stubborn," more of a "toad" than ever. I did not care to join in the games played by other boys, but preferred to stand apart, watching them with jealous eyes, judging them, hating them. It wasn't envy I felt at such times: it was contempt; it was scorn. My warfare with men had begun even then and even there. I avoided people, and they neglected me. I did not love them, and they hated me. At play in the parks some of the boys would chase me; others would laugh at me and call me names. At school they pulled my curls or told the teachers tales about me. Even on my grandfather's farm in the country peasant brats threw stones at me without provocation, as if they felt instinctively that I belonged to some other breed.”

ChildhoodOstracism
Book:Un uomo finito
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“Ogni libro è, in qualche senso, un nemico, un invasore (vuol sostituire altri pensieri ai tuoi, condurti a sentire a modo suo ecc.). Bisogna, per conseguenza, difendersi. Leggere a mano armata. L'arma più adatta (di quelle materiali) è un lapis di colore. Uno di quei lapis massicci dal tronco esagonale, con una punta rossa e una turchina. E con quello ferire nei margini (zona più vulnerabile) il libro che si sta leggendo, con lunghi tratti violenti, con esclamativi senza pietà, con interrogativi insidiosi, con frecce di aperta disapprovazione. Non tutti i libri, si capisce, meritano questo trattamento guerrigliero, ma sì quelli che si devono leggere per forza, e quelli che disonorano uno scrittore, e quelli infine che tradiscono le promesse del titolo o della fama, e quelli infine che si leggono apposta per smaltire gli umori marziali.”

LibriLeggereLettura
Author:Giovanni Papini
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“O facto de o pranto abundar nos olhos das mulheres e das crianças - umas e outras egocêntricas, fracas e de alma rudimentar - não bastou para colocar de sobreaviso os admiradores da incontinência lacrimal. O homem, verdadeiramente homem, o autêntico vir virtuoso, o sábio honesto, nunca choram ou se porventura a vasilha lacrimal dá indícios de querer transbordar, envergonham-se e escondem-se. Quem sabe realmente sofrer não sabe chorar. Quanto mais profunda a dor, menos se manifesta com as lágrimas.”

HomemSofrimentoMulherCriançaSentimentalismo
Book:Relatório sobre os Homens
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“A ciência é uma sucessão de hipóteses que se contradizem, de teorias que se contrapõem, de concepções caducas e de esperanças mortas. E a Ciência, tal como soterrou a Magia, poderá um dia ser morta e substituída por um modo de conhecimento superior. Vangloria-se de reduzir as fadigas e as infelicidades dos homens e, com a a ajuda proporcionada à indústria, multiplicou as necessidades e, portanto, o trabalho e a escravidão, aumentando com os conhecimentos inúteis e a vida mais insaciável, a nossa carga de dores. Pretende substituir-se ao sacerdote e não consegue responder às exigências mais desesperadas acerca do destino e da morte, pelo que os homens, após uma longa embriaguez de cientismo, regressam, pouco a pouco, às revelações da fé.”

ReligiãoCiênciaFéMaterialismoIndustriaEscravidão
Book:Relatório sobre os Homens
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“Mas como esta raça de imbecis se reúne com frequência com medo da solidão, ou seja, do tédio, torna-se necessário que, depois de escutar um pouco de música, saborear uma bebida e entregar-se a algum jogo, falem uns com os outros. Em que poderia consistir a troca de palavras entre pessoas que não têm nada para dizer? Cérebros desabitados, almas desertas, cabides ambulantes encimados por rostos mascarados que se inibem do que é verdadeiramente humano e profundo, podem palrar, mas não falar. Com efeito - à parte o papaguear de notícias e opiniões recolhidas dos jornais da manhã e que todos já conhecem -, as conversas compõem-se de mexericos sobre escândalos importantes ou exagerados, elogios aos presentes, maledicência acerca dos ausentes e comentários quase sempre impregnados de subentendidos sexuais.”

HumanidadeSociedadeIdiotasVulgaridade
Book:Relatório sobre os Homens
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