First read of Leopardi. Born in Recanati (Marche) out of an aristocratic family, and with a Jesuit, classical education, he died in Naples at my age (39), possibly of cholera, but he also suffered rheumatism.

He wrote this "Pensieri" inspired by La Rochfoucauld's "Maximes".

1/n

His "Thoughts" were unfinished when he died, they were a pretty disorganized manuscript, and several (different) different editions exist, although the main one (this) is the one compiled by his friend Ranieri, who seems to have been for Leopardi what Max Brod was to Kafka.

2/n – bei Park Hotel San Michele

First thought: The world is divided between villains and honest people. Villains recognize themselves immediately, they respect each other and behave properly to one another but it is impossible for them to do this with honest people. Honest people people are too predictable.
3/n

One understands Leopardi is considered a pessimist...

Villains in poverty are rare, as they help each other, but sincere, honest people are often not when disgrace hits them as they are hated by "mankind, which hates not that who acts evil, but the ones who name it (evil)".

4/n – bei Park Hotel San Michele

Leopardi wrote in literary Italian, but he had in his letters high praise for his Recanatese dialect.

Third thought, written in the early 19th century: "The usage of this century is to publish a lot and read nothing".

5/n – bei Park Hotel San Michele

5th thought: "In hidden things it is always the smaller number who sees better, in the obvious ones, the larger. (...) Thus, it is foolish a d dangerous, and in the long term useless, to ask for the opinion of the larger number in civil matters."

6/n – bei Park Hotel San Michele

6th thought: "Death is not bad, because it frees from all evil, and removes desire. Old age is the ultimate evil because it prevents man from enjoying pleasure but leaving him the appetites and pain. Nevertheless, men fear death and want to reach the old age."

7/n – bei Park Hotel San Michele

17th thought: "Same as prisons and galleys are full of innocent people, public office and honours are bestowed to those reluctant to them. It's almost impossible to find anyone confessing (...) having desired such honours: but maybe the latter is less likely than the former."
8/n – bei Park Hotel San Michele

20th thought: "If I had the wit of Cervantes I would write a book to purge, as he did in Spain to imitators of chevaliers, I would do in Italy (...) for a vice (...) not less barbaric and cruel (...). I am referring to the vice of reading to others one's own compositions."

9/n

25th thought: "Nobody is so disconnected from the world (...), that won't feel in part reconciled, as no one we know is so evil that when he greets us gallantly won't appear less evil than before. These observations proof man is weak, they don't justify evil nor the world."

10/n

27th tought: "There is not greater sign of not being a philosopher and not wise that wanting the whole life to be philosophical and wise."

Leopardi would have been an excellent Twitterati.

11/n

28th thought: "Mankind is unique (...) in being divided into two parts: those who use arrogance and those who suffer it (...). Those who can choose, do choose. The truth is not all can, and not always."

12/n

30th thought: "Mankind tends to cheapen present goods and praise the past ones, similarly most travellers, as they travel, prefer they home country to that one where they are. But when they are back, they prefer with the same passion the places where they were to their own."
13/n – bei Spiaggia della Purità

31st thought connects with an observation I did on Lindy: Leopardi thinks that every country thinks their women are vain, that money is king, that envy and hypocrisy are especially strong there, when these things are human, or universal @PaulSkallas.

14/n
https://twitter.com/NachoOliveras/status/1134823660588589062?s=19