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“No one thing shows the greatness and power of the human intellect or the loftiness and nobility of man more than his ability to know and to understand fully and feel strongly his own smallness. When, in considering the multiplicity of worlds, he feels himself to be an infinitesimal part of a globe which itself is a negligible part of one of the infinite number of systems that go to make up the world, and in considering this is astonished by his own smallness, and in feeling it deeply and regarding it intently, virtually blends into nothing, and it is as if he loses himself in the immensity of things, and finds himself as though lost in the incomprehensible vastness of existence, with this single act of thought he gives the greatest possible proof of the nobility and immense capability of his own mind, which, enclosed in such a small and negligible being, has nonetheless managed to know and understand things so superior to his own nature, and to embrace and contain this same intensity of existence and things in his thought.”
― Zibaldone di pensieri
― Zibaldone di pensieri
“A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one’s art. One must accept it. For this reason I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.”
― Selected Non-Fictions
― Selected Non-Fictions
“I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.”
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“For days and weeks on end one racks one's brains to no avail, and, if asked, one could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, any more than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane. Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life?”
― The Rings of Saturn
― The Rings of Saturn
“Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.”
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The Kindred Spirits
— 300 members
— last activity Sep 23, 2025 07:28AM
Place to meet and talk about anything.
2015: The Year of Reading Women
— 673 members
— last activity Apr 01, 2020 04:01AM
Join us for a year of member-run group reads to make 2015 the year of reading women! Rules Members are free to create author threads by surname if th ...more
Classical music lovers
— 584 members
— last activity Dec 03, 2025 01:54AM
Our fast-growing classical music group is sometimes erudite - and maybe a little eccentric - but we aim never to be exclusive. Classical music is a g ...more
Dalkey Archive Devotees
— 74 members
— last activity Aug 27, 2018 08:18AM
for fans of Flann, S.B., and the best there is in publishing today
Theatre Books and Plays
— 1523 members
— last activity May 02, 2026 04:31AM
A room for lovers of theatre, theater books, texts on acting, directing, theory and scripts.
Erik F.’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Erik F.’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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