“Loyalty, Signor Molteni, not love. Penelope is loyal to Ulysses but we do not know how far she loved him...and as you know people can sometimes be absolutely loyal without loving. In certain cases, in fact, loyalty is form of vengeance, of black-mail, of recovering one's self-respect. Loyalty, not love.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“Because the world to-day is so constructed that no one can do what he would like to do, and he is forced, instead, to do what others wish him to do. Because the question of money always intrudes—into what we do, into what we are, into what we wish to become, into our work, into our highest aspirations, even into our relations with the people we love!”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“They say that, if we manage to live without too great an effort, it is entirely owing to the automatism which makes us unconscious of a great part of our movements. In order to take one single step, it seems, we displace an infinite number of muscles, and yet, thanks to this automatism, we are unaware of it. The same thing happens in our relations with other people.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent flame, was being gradually softened and bent by the troubles that oppressed it. In spite of myself, I was conscious of a feeling of envy for those who did not suffer from such troubles, for the wealthy and the privileged; and this envy, I observed, was accompanied—still against my will—by a feeling of bitterness towards them, which, in turn, did not limit its aim to particular persons or situations, but, as if by an uncontrollable bias, tended to assume the general, abstract character of a whole conception of life. In fact, during those difficult days, I came very gradually to feel that my irritation and my intolerance of poverty were turning into a revolt against injustice, and not only against the injustice which struck at me personally but the injustice from which so many others like me suffered. I was quite aware of this almost imperceptible transformation of my subjective resentments into objective reflections and states of mind, owing to the bent of my thoughts which led always and irresistibly in the same direction: owing also to my conversation, which, without my intending it, alway harped upon the same subject. I also noticed in myself a growing sympathy for those political parties which proclaimed their struggle against the evils and infamies of the society to which, in the end I had attributed the troubles that beset me—a society which, as I thought, in reference to myself, allowed its best sons to languish and protected its worst ones. Usually, and in the simpler, less cultivated people, this process occurs without their knowing it, in the dark depths of consciousness where, by a kind of mysterious alchemy, egoism is transmuted into altruism, hatred into love, fear into courage; but to me, accustomed as I was to observing and studying myself, the whole thing was clear and visible, as though I were watching it happen in someone else; and yet I was aware the whole time that I was being swayed by material subjective factors, that I was transforming purely personal motives into universal reasons.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“De la misma forma que una barra de hierro sometida a una llamapersistente se ablanda y dobla, sentía entonces que el metal de mi ánimo era gradualmenteablandado y doblado por las angustias que lo oprimían.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“... Emilia'nın her türlü kusurdan arınmış olduğunu düşünüyordum ve benim de ona öyle göründüğümü varsayıyordum. Ya da belki ben onun kusurlarını, o da benimkileri görüyordu ama aşk duygusunun ürettiği gizemli bir dönüşüm nedeniyle bu kusurlar bize sadece bağışlanabilir değil, aynı zamanda sevilebilir görünüyordu; bunlar sanki kusur değil, türünün özel bir örneği olsa bile birer nitelikti. Her neyse, biz birbirimizi yargılamıyor, seviyorduk.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“لم أشك لحظة حين صاحت بي ذلك اليوم : (إنني أحتقرك !). إن هذه العبارة التي، لو قالها فم آخر ربما لم تعن شيئًا، كانت تتلبس في نظرها معنى دقيقًا محددًا: كانت تحتقرني حقًا، وليس ثمة بعد الآن مجال لفعل شيء. وحتى لو كنت أجهل كل شيء عن طبع إيملي، فإن اللهجة التي لفظت بها هذه العبارة لم تكن تترك أي شك: كانت لهجة الكلمة لدى ولادتها، منبثقة توًا من الشيء نفسه، منطوقة من قبل انسان ربما كان يستعملها للمرة الأولى، وهو قد استمدها - بدافع من الضرورة - من ارث اللغة العريق القدم، من غير أن يبحث عنها، وعلى غير إرادة منه تقريبًا.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
Alberto Moravia
Born place: in Via Sgambati, Rome, Italy
Born date November 28, 1907
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“clean-shaven and dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American millionaires.”
― Ian Fleming, quote from Goldfinger
“El amor es siempre la posibilidad de presenciar el nacimiento de un mundo.”
― Alain Badiou, quote from In Praise of Love
“Despite their many activities, these departed souls are still able to reach us if called upon.
Occasionally, a disturbed spirit does not want to leave the Earth after physical death. This is due to some unresolved problem which has had a severe impact on its consciousness. In these abnormal cases, help is available from higher, caring entities who can assist in the”
― Michael Newton, quote from Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
“For instance, some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman’s job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women, memorized by Jewish husbands for the purpose of honoring their wives at the family table. It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women
“How you can come to love an animal! She doesn't talk, but she speaks with her eyes, her paws, her meows, and I understand her.”
― Zlata Filipović, quote from Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo
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A Great ReckoningBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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