Quote preview background for Italo Calvino
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.
Italo Calvino Six Memos For The Next Millennium
Turn into a Quote Card

Quote Detail

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.
IC
Italo Calvino

Six Memos For The Next Millennium

Quick Answer

What this quote page tells you

This canonical quote page keeps the full saying, the attributed author, any linked work, and the topic tags together so the quote can be cited from one stable URL.

Related Quotes

More quote cards from the same area

"

Though I leave the house as little as possible, I have the impression that someone is disturbing my papers. More than once I have discovered that some pages were missing from my manuscripts. A few days afterward I would find the pages in their place again. But often I no longer recognize my manuscripts, as if I had forgotten what I had written, or as if overnight I were so changed that no longer recognized myself in the self of yesterday.

IC
Italo Calvino

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

"

Why d__ou make me suffer?"__ecause I love you.__ow it was his turn to get angry. __o, no, you don__ love me! People in love want happiness, not pain!___eople in love want only love, even at the cost of pain.___hen you__e making people suffer on purpose.___es, to see if you love me.__he Baron__ philosophy would not go any further. __ain is a negative state of the soul._ __ove is all._ __ain should always be fought against.___ove refuses nothing.___ome things I__l never admit.___h yes, you do, now, for you love me and you suffer.

IC
Italo Calvino

The Baron in the Trees