“I say that the world is an alliance of scoundrels against decent people, and of cowards against the generous.”

Original: Dico che il mondo è una lega di birbanti contro gli uomini da bene, e di vili contro i generosi. — A characteristically severe judgement on how self-interest can unite the unscrupulous against the honourable. · Pensieri, I, published posthumously in 1845 (Italian)

• Character
• Morality
• Society

“Children find everything in nothing; adults find nothing in everything.”

Original: I fanciulli trovano il tutto nel nulla, gli uomini il nulla nel tutto. — A celebrated contrast between childhood imagination and the disillusionment that accompanies adult experience. · Zibaldone, entry 527, 19 January 1821 (Italian)

• Childhood
• Experience
• Imagination

“Boredom is the desire for happiness left, so to speak, in its pure state.”

Original: La noia è il desiderio della felicità, lasciato, per così dir, puro. — Boredom becomes the uncovered form of desire when neither pleasure nor pain gives the mind another object. · Zibaldone, entry 3715, 17 October 1823 (Italian)

• Desire
• Happiness
• Mind