Quotes from Zeno's Conscience

“You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide. ”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“It is comfortable to live in the belief that you are great, though your greatness is latent. ”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Misunderstanding women is a clear sign of scant virility. ”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Health doesn't analyze itself, nor does it look at itself in the mirror. Only we sick people know something about ourselves.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Le donne sono fatte così. Ogni giorno che sorge porta loro una nuova interpretazione del passato. Dev'essere una vita poco monotona la loro.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Complete freedom consists of being able to do what you like, provided you also do something you like less.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Sorrow and love ― life, in other words ― cannot be considered a sickness because they hurt.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“True religion, indeed, is that which does not have to be avowed in order to provide the solace that at times...if only rarely...you cannot do without.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“The fancies of wine are authentic events.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“... a preached immorality is more to be punished than an immoral action. You arrive at murder through love or through hate; you propagandize murder only through wickedness.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“When will you discover that it would be a good idea to memorize your life, even the large part of it that will revolt you?”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Unlike other sicknesses, life is always fatal. It doesn't tolerate therapies. It would be like stopping the holes that we have in our bodies, believing them wounds. We would die of strangulation the moment we were treated.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Birazcık zoraki bir gülümseyişti bu, minnetin gerçek yüzü yani.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Birine ruh yapısının ne biçim olduğunu açıklamak, dilediği gibi davranmasına izin vermenin bir yoludur.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Under the law established by the possessor of the greatest number of devices, sickness and the sick will flourish.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Un uomo può avere il sentimento di una propria altissima intelligenza, che non dia altro segno di sè fuori di quel suo forte sentimento.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Adesso che son qui, ad analizzarmi, sono colto da un dubbio: che io forse abbia amato tanto la sigaretta per poter riversare su di essa la colpa della mia incapacità?”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“V jedné jediné maličkosti se s Augustou neshodujeme, a to v názoru, jak zacházet se zlobivými dětmi: já si myslím, že bolest dítěte je méně důležitá než naše a že je lepší způsobit bolest dítěti, jestliže to dospělého ušetří velké mrzutosti, kdežto ona se domnívá, že jsme dítě zplodili, a tak je musíme taky snášet.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“... je tam také pokus o báseň věnovanou ... mouše. Kdybych nevěděl, jak se věci mají, řekl bych, že ty verše sepsala nějaká ctihodná slečna, která tyká tvorům, o nichž pěje; ale protože jsem ji složil já, nezbývá mi než věřit, že byl-li jsem já schopen něčeho takového, pak už je každý schpen všeho.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“A vida assemelha-se um pouco a uma enfermidade: também procede por crises e por depressões. A diferença entre as outras doenças é que a vida é sempre mortal.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Credo che tutti abbiamo nella nostra coscienza come nel nostro corpo dei punti delicati e coperti cui volentieri si pensa.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“When my eyes closed, however, in the darkness I saw that her words had created a new world, like all words that are not true. I”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“I wanted again May roses in December. I”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“Forse traverso una catastrofe inaudita prodotta dagli ordigni ritorneremo alla salute. Quando i gas velenosi non basteranno più, un uomo fatto come tutti gli altri, nel segreto di una stanza di questo mondo, inventerà un esplosivo incomparabile, in confronto al quale gli esplosivi attualmente esistenti saranno considerati quali innocui giocattoli. Ed un altro uomo fatto anche lui come tutti gli altri, ma degli altri un po’ più ammalato, ruberà tale esplosivo e s’arrampicherà al centro della terra per porlo nel punto ove il suo effetto potrà essere il massimo. Ci sarà un’esplosione enorme che nessuno udrà e la terra ritornata alla forma di nebulosa errerà nei cieli priva di parassiti e di malattie.
[La coscienza di Zeno, 1923]”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“In psychoanalysis there is never repetition, neither of the same images nor”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“The sun didn’t illuminate me! When you are old, you remain in shadow, even when you have wit.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

“é un modo comodo di vivere quello di credersi grande di una grandezza latente.”
― Italo Svevo, quote from Zeno's Conscience

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“ “Shut up!” I say, laughing hysterically. Alice transforms back to an inanimate jade piece as I toss her. My aim is off and she plops into Morpheus’s tea, splattering him and the chessboard.
With a graceful sweep of his hand, he retracts his magic. Tea drizzles down his face as his inky eyes turn up to mine, alight with something both dangerous and daring, shifting moods faster than I can blink.
“Careful, plum.” It’s his deep cockney accent now. He wipes his face with a napkin. “Don’t start something you have no intention of finishing.”
“Oh, I’ll finish it,” I say—spurred by the dark confidence fluttering at the edge of my psyche. The side of me that knows I’m his match in every way. “And you know I’ll win.” I rise from my chair to scope out the room for weapons, vaguely aware of the prisms of glittery light reflected off my skin onto the surroundings.
“I know I’ll let you win,” Morpheus says, standing up. “I won’t even put up a fight.” His white-toothed smile spans to something forebodingly provocative, as though mimicking the spread of his wings. “Well, perhaps a small one, just for sport.” ”
― A.G. Howard, quote from Ensnared

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BookQuoters 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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.