“Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes away good things, it takes away also the desire for them. Old age is the supreme evil, because it deprives us of all pleasures, leaving us only the appetite for them, and it brings with it all sufferings. Nevertheless, we fear death, and we desire old age.”

Thoughts. Translation by J.G. Nichols [Hesperus Press, 2002, ISBN 9781843910121], p. 6
Aphorisms

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes away good things, it takes away also the d…" by Giacomo Leopardi?

Giacomo Leopardi18

Italian poet, philosopher and writer 1798–1837

Related quotes

“If we cannot take away all the grief, all the evil, all the death, we will start with loving everyone, trying ourselves not to give the grief, the evil, the death, with the faith that the rest of the grief, evil and death will disappear.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

“We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.
So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Preface to Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
Context: And what, you ask, does writing teach us?
First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.
So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

“We too must suffer all the suffering around us. We all have not one body, but we have one way of growing, and this leads us through all anguish, whether in this or in that form. Just as the child develops through all the stages of life right into old age and to death (and fundamentally to the earlier stage the later one seems out of reach, in relation both to desire and to fear), so also do we develop (no less deeply bound up with mankind than with ourselves) through all the sufferings of this world. There is no room for justice in this context, but neither is there any room either for fear of suffering or for the interpretation of suffering as a merit.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

103
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Source: Daniel Deronda

“The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“…do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater evils? …Then all but philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

“"Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory." […] They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their great amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 17 (p. 139)

“This is the love that does all things; that brings to pass even the evils we suffer; so shaping them that they are but instruments of preparing the good which, as yet, has not arrived.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 270.

“And, indeed, when I reflect on this subject I find four reasons why old age appears to be unhappy: first, that it withdraws us from active pursuits; second, that it makes the body weaker; third, that it deprives us of almost all physical pleasures; and, fourth, that it is not far removed from death.”
Etenim, cum complector animo, quattuor reperio causas, cur senectus misera videatur: unam, quod avocet a rebus gerendis; alteram, quod corpus faciat infirmius; tertiam, quod privet fere omnibus voluptatibus; quartam, quod haud procul absit a morte.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

section 15 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0039%3Asection%3D15 <br class="br">Cato Maior de Senectute – On Old Age (44 BC)

“The smallest evil that is inflicted on us seems to us a monstrous and horrible injustice. On the contrary, we are willing to consider the evils of others' light and to excuse and mitigate the injustices suffered by them.”

Daniel Salamanca (1863–1935) President of Bolivia (1863-1935)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Giacomo Leopardi18

Related quotes

Related topics