Italo Svevo Quotes

• You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide.

  Italo Svevo

  Eye, Wide

  Italo Svevo (2015). “Zeno's Conscience”, p.91, Vintage

  52 Copy quote

• There are three things I always forget. Names, faces and... the third I can't remember.

  Italo Svevo

  Inspirational, Names, Three

  Italo Svevo (1969). “Essays on Italo Svevo”

  12 Copy quote

• Everyone tends to remember the past with greater fervor as the present gains greater importance.

  Italo Svevo

  Past, Gains, Remember

  Italo Svevo (2015). “Zeno's Conscience”, p.83, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• Who knows whether, if I had given up smoking, I should really have become the strong perfect man I imagined? Perhaps it was this very doubt that bound me to my vice, because life is so much pleasanter if one is able to believe in one's own latent greatness

  Italo Svevo

  Strong, Fear, Believe

  14 Copy quote

• Pain and love - the whole of life, in short - cannot be looked on as a disease just because they make us suffer.

  Italo Svevo

  Life, Pain, Suffering

  6 Copy quote

• Whenever I look at a mountain I always expect it to turn into a volcano.

  Italo Svevo

  Nature, Volcanoes, Mountain

  Italo Svevo (1969). “Further Confessions of Zeno”, p.126, Univ of California Press

  19 Copy quote

• It is comfortable to live in the belief that you are great, though your greatness is latent.

  Italo Svevo

  Greatness, Belief, Latent

  Italo Svevo (2015). “Zeno's Conscience”, p.12, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• To kill someone, even treacherously is more manly than to wound a friend by betraying his confidence.

  Italo Svevo

  Fear, Atheism, Rage

  10 Copy quote

• Misunderstanding women is a clear sign of scant virility.

  Italo Svevo

  Clear, Misunderstanding

  Italo Svevo (2015). “Zeno's Conscience”, p.83, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• Tears throw a veil over our faults and allow us to accuse fate without fear or contradiction.

  Italo Svevo

  Fear, Fate, Tears

  7 Copy quote

• Health doesn't analyze itself, nor does it look at itself in the mirror. Only we sick people know something about ourselves.

  Italo Svevo

  Mirrors, People, Sick

  Italo Svevo (2015). “Zeno's Conscience”, p.163, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

• And it is true that life lacks the monotony of museums. There come days which seem worthy of being framed, but they are so full of conflicting sounds, of line and color and living, burning light that they never become tedious.

  Italo Svevo

  Fear, Museums, Light

  7 Copy quote

• Everyone remembers his past with greater vividness as the present becomes more important. Dying men in their last delirium are supposed to see their whole life spread out before them.

  Italo Svevo

  Fear, Past, Men

  7 Copy quote

• The great modern novel of the comic-pathetic illusion of freedom is Confessions of Zeno .

  Italo Svevo

  Modern Novel, Illusion, Confession

  4 Copy quote

• The fancies of wine are authentic events.

  Italo Svevo

  Wine, Events, Fancy

  Italo Svevo (2015). “Zeno's Conscience”, p.231, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• A novelist who ranks with Proust , Kafka , Musil and his friend James Joyce as one of the enduring pillars of Modernism.

  Italo Svevo

  Pillars, Novelists, Proust

  6 Copy quote

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