miniZibaldone

I’ve noticed (and I have more than one example in mind) that young people who aren’t poor, or haven’t been crushed or disheartened by poverty, people with healthy and hardy physiques, courageous and busy, capable of looking after themselves and with little or no need, or rather little or no desire, for help from others, or for the physical or moral support of others, at least not as a rule; young people still untouched by misfortune, or rather (since just being   born   means suffering), touched only in such a way that thanks to the energy of their youth and constitution and the freshness of their mental energies, they have been able to shrug it off on their own, and pay little attention to it; young people like this, as I was saying, although on the one hand they won’t tolerate the slightest insult, have a tendency to lose their tempers and are more inclined than most to make fun of others, present or absent, and to be overbearing more often than not, both in the way they s...

Once heroism was gone from the world, to be replaced by universal egoism, real friendship, sacrificial friendship between people who still have active interests and ambitions, became extremely improbable. So even though people have always said that equality is one of the most powerful catalysts of friendship, these days I reckon it’s less likely for two young people to be friends than for a young person with someone older, someone who has strong feelings but is already disenchanted with the world and hence has ceased to expect happiness for himself. No longer gripped by urgent ambitions, the older man is more able to ally himself with someone who is still very involved and to develop a lively and useful interest in him, thus forming, always assuming the other has the spirit to reciprocate, a real and solid friendship. Such a situation seems rather more conducive to friendship than when both people are disenchanted, since if neither has ambitions or interests, there is nothing to build...

Notebooks, 1935-1942 (Volume 1) Albert Camus Notebooks, 1942-1951 (Volume 2) Albert Camus  Notebooks, 1951-1959 (Volume 3) Albert Camus  Neither Victims nor Executioners: An Ethic Superior to Murder Albert Camus Loving the Church Raniero Cantalamessa  The World Beyond Your Head Matthew Crawford  If I Live to be 100 Neenah Ellis  Interview with History Oriana Fallaci  The Rage and the Pride Oriana Fallaci  Zibaldone Giacomo Leopadri  The Sound and the Story Thomas Looker  Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud and James Putnam an the Purpose of American Psychology George Prochnik  Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius Avril Pyman  The Waverley Novels: The Betrothed Sir Walter Scott  Consilience Edward Wilson    Flying Visits Clive James

Canti Giacomo Leopardi     The Victories of Love and Other Poems Coventry Patmore 

The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov The First Man Albert Camus Cold Mountain Charles Frazier Small Change Yehudit Hendel   Canti Giacomo Leopardi