Italo Svevo

"I may be a pessimist about life in general, but about work I am an optimist."

"There is a time in life when you expect to be happy, and if you are not happy, you feel cheated."

"Man would be much offended if he were told he is a machine."

"The man who keeps his eyes fixed on the future does not see the present."

"My wife was convinced that if the children could be found and brought back, that would be the solution to all our problems."

"I wanted to offer a new interpretation of life through the medium of the novel."

"Consciousness is a disease."

"Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament."

"The man who dreams of gold is often poor."

"We are all dying, my friend, but some of us are not yet aware of it."

"True love means wanting what is best for the other person, even if it hurts you."

"To understand life, one must first understand oneself."

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."

"Writing is a way of understanding oneself and the world."

"Memory is a form of forgetting."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that the very existence becomes a form of rebellion."

"Art is the lie that enables us to recognize the truth."

"Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship."

"Life is too short to waste time on things that don't matter."

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

"Success is often the result of failing until you finally understand."

"We live in the hope that we will understand ourselves better tomorrow."

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it."

"Friendship is a form of love without the madness of passion."

"Education is the foundation upon which we build our understanding."

"Knowledge is a burden that only the wise can bear."

"Time is the canvas upon which life paints itself."

"Truth is often stranger than fiction, and more beautiful."

"Freedom is not given; it is achieved through awareness."

"Peace comes not from the absence of conflict, but from understanding."