Zitate von Giacomo Leopardi

„Die Aufrichtigkeit kann dann von Nutzen sein, wenn man sie als Kunstgriff verwendet, oder wenn sie einem, dank ihrer Seltenheit, nicht geglaubt wird.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

aus Pensieri LVI
(Original ital.: "La schiettezza allora può giovare, quando è usata ad arte, o quando, per la sua rarità, non l'è data fede."
Quelle: Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri http://www.classicitaliani.it/leopardi/prosa/Leopardi_Pensieri_01.htm

„Die Unentschlossenheit ist schlimmer als die Verzweiflung.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi, buch Zibaldone

aus Gedanken (Zibaldone), Übersetzung: Nino Barbieri'
(Original ital.: "L'irresoluzione è peggio della disperazione."
Quelle: Liberliber, Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri (Zibaldone) http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/l/leopardi/pensieri_di_varia_filosofia_e_di_bella_letteratura/pdf/pensie_p.pdf

„Verzweiflung ist unendlich viel lustvoller als Langeweile.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Gedanken aus dem Zibaldone

„Die Menschen hassen nie so sehr den, der Böses tut, noch das Böse selbst, wie den, der es beim Namen nennt.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Zitiert in Frankfurter Hefte, Band 34 (1979) S. 53 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=NRIoAQAAIAAJ&q=hassen
"Colpa non perdonata dal genere umano, il quale non odia mai tanto chi fa male, né il male stesso, quanto chi lo nomina." - :it:s:Pensieri (Leopardi)/I

„Die Tätigkeit des faulsten Menschen ist intensiver als die des tätigsten Tieres.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Gedanken aus dem Zibaldone

„Wenn einer die Illusion bekämpft, so ist das das sicherste Zeichen seines unvollkommenden und unzureichenden Wissen - eben ein Zeichen dafür, dass er einer Illusion zum Opfer gefallen ist.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Gedanken aus dem Zibaldone

„Das Alter ist der Übel höchstes; denn es beraubt den Menschen aller Genüsse, läßt ihm aber das Verlangen danach, und bringt alle Leiden mit sich.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

aus Pensieri VI.
(Original ital.: "La vecchiezza è male sommo: perché priva l'uomo di tutti i piaceri, lasciandogliene gli appetiti; e porta seco tutti i dolori."
Quelle: Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri http://www.classicitaliani.it/leopardi/prosa/Leopardi_Pensieri_01.htm

„Wer steigen will, wenn auch durch wahre Verdienste, der lasse die Bescheidenheit fahren. Auch darin gleicht die Welt den Weibern: mit Scham und Zurückhaltung erreicht man nichts bei ihr.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

aus Pensieri XXIV.
(Original ital.: " Chi vuole innalzarsi, quantunque per virtù vera, dia bando alla modestia. Ancora in questa parte il mondo è simile alle donne: con verecondia e con riserbo da lui non si ottiene nulla."

„Gleiche Zaubermacht übt Schönheit wie Musik, die uns so oft von unbekannten Paradiesen hehres Geheimnis zu enthüllen scheint.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi, Aspasia

Aspasia

„Öffne ein Fenster, laß mich das Licht sehen." alternativ: "[…] laß mich mehr Licht sehen.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Letzte Worte, 14. Juni 1837
Original ital.: "Apri quella finestra, fammi vedere la luce. alternativ: "[…] più luce."
Letzte Worte

„The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one's own knowledge is not to overstep them.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

„Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

„Children find everything in nothing, men find nothing in everything.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi, buch Zibaldone

Quelle: Zibaldone di pensieri

„What do you do there, moon, in the sky? Tell me what you do, silent moon. When evening comes you rise and go contemplating wastelands; then you set.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

„Freedom is the dream you dream
While putting thought in chains again“

—  Giacomo Leopardi, Canti

Quelle: Canti

„My philosophy isn’t only not conducive to misanthropy, as it might appear to a superficial reader, and as many have accused me. It essentially rules out misanthropy, it tends toward healing, to dissolving discontent and hatred. Not knee-jerk hatred but the deep-dyed hatred that unreflective people who would deny being misanthropes so cordially bear (habitually or on select occasions) toward their own kind in response to hurts they receive—as we all do, justly or not—from others. My philosophy holds nature guilty of everything, it acquits mankind completely and directs our hate, or at least our lamentations, to its matrix, to the true origin of the afflictions living creatures suffer, etc.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi, buch Zibaldone

2nd January, 1829. Translation by W. S. Di Piero.
Zibaldone (1898)

„ICELANDER: So say all the philosophers. But since that which is destroyed suffers, and that which is born from its destruction also suffers in due course, and finally is in its turn destroyed, would you enlighten me on one point, about which hitherto no philosopher has satisfied me? For whose pleasure and service is this wretched life of the world maintained, by the suffering and death of all the beings which compose it?“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Essays and Dialogues (1882), Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander

„ICELANDER: Thus I reply to you. I am well aware you did not make the world for the service of men. It were easier to believe that you made it expressly as a place of torment for them. But tell me: why am I here at all? Did I ask to come into the world? Or am I here unnaturally, contrary to your will? If however, you yourself have placed me here, without giving me the power of acceptance or refusal of this gift of life, ought you not as far as possible to try and make me happy, or at least preserve me from the evils and dangers, which render my sojourn a painful one? And what I say of myself, I say of the whole human race, and of every living creature.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi

Essays and Dialogues (1882), Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander

„Pleasure is always in the past or in the future, never in the present.“

—  Giacomo Leopardi, buch Zibaldone

Il piacere è sempre o passato o futuro, non mai presente.
29th September 1823, Festival of Saint Michael the Archangel.
Zibaldone (1898)