Zeno's Conscience

by Italo Svevo

it is comfortable to live in the belief that you are great, though your greatness is latent.

Today I am certain that he knew absolutely nothing about flirtation. I am fifty-seven, and I’m sure that if I don’t stop smoking or if psychoanalysis doesn’t cure me, my last glance from my deathbed will express my desire for my nurse, provided she is not my wife and provided my wife has allowed the nurse to be beautiful!

You arrive at murder through love or through hate; you propagandize murder only through wickedness.

Struggle always produces resentment.

I turned, outraged. Who dared interrupt the explanations that I hadn’t yet begun?

I was prepared to become Augusta’s good friend, whereas previously it would have been impossible, because I’m unable to be friends with ugly people.

Once married, you don’t talk anymore about love, and when you feel the need to speak of it, animal instincts quickly intervene and restore silence.

she had to be ignorant of the history of the world to be able to believe that she had made a clever transaction simply by buying an object: it’s when you sell the object that you judge the wisdom of the purchase.

It was a slightly forced smile: the true look of gratitude.

That’s how women are. Every day that dawns brings them a new interpretation of the past. Their life cannot be very monotonous.

We would remain like this: I had loved her and now I loved Augusta, but my former love gave her the right to my devotion.