Book One, Part II “The Warrior”, Chapter 2 (p. 49)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)
“Two truths that most men will never believe: one that we know nothing, the other that we are nothing. Add the third, which depends a lot on the second: that there is nothing to hope for after death.”
—
Giacomo Leopardi
,
book
Zibaldone
1832. Passions. Translation by Tim Parks. [Yale University Press, 2014, ISBN 9780300186338], p. 8
Zibaldone (1898)
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Giacomo Leopardi 18
Italian poet, philosopher and writer 1798–1837Related quotes
Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.148
“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”
Michel De Montaigne
(1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
... il n'est rien creu si fermement que ce qu'on sçait le moins, ...
Book I, Ch. 31
Essais (1595), Book I
Variant: Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
Source: The Complete Essays
“Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.”
Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.
Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 619
“Verily we know nothing. Truth is buried deep.”
Democritus
Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory
Another translation: "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well." Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers R.D. Hicks, Ed. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0004,001:9:11
Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Fragments
“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Octavio Paz
(1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature
Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 1
Context: The best thing to do will be to choose the path to Galta, traverse it again (invent it as I traverse it), and without realizing it, almost imperceptibly, go to the end — without being concerned about what “going to the end” means or what I meant when I wrote that phrase. At the very beginning of the journey, already far off the main highway, as I walked along the path that leads to Galta, past the little grove of banyan trees and the pools of foul stagnant water, through the Gateway fallen into ruins and into the main courtyard bordered by dilapidated houses, I also had no idea where I was going, and was not concerned about it. I wasn’t asking myself questions: I was walking, merely walking, with no fixed itinerary in mind. I was simply setting forth to meet … what? I didn’t know at the time, and I still don’t know. Perhaps that is why I wrote “going to the end”: in order to find out, in order to discover what there is after the end. A verbal trap; after the end there is nothing, since if there were something, the end would not be the end. Nonetheless, we are always setting forth to meet … even though we know that there is nothing, or no one, awaiting us. We go along, without a fixed itinerary, yet at the same time with an end (what end?) in mind, and with the aim of reaching the end. A search for the end, a dread of the end: the obverse and the reverse of the same act. Without this end that constantly eludes us we would not journey forth, nor would there be any paths. But the end is the refutation and the condemnation of the path: at the end the path dissolves, the meeting fades away to nothingness. And the end — it too fades away to nothingness.
Source: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born