The Little Virtues: Essays

by Natalia Ginzburg

In one sense she has no problems, she can give in to the temptation to let her life go to pieces; I, on the other hand, cannot.

Now and again my friend says that she is fed up with working and wants to let her life go to pieces. She wants to shut herself in some filthy bar and drink all her savings, or she will just stay in bed and think of nothing and leave everything to drift, and let them come and cut off the gas and the light.

the sadness with which the city fills us every time we return lies in this feeling that we are at home and, at the same time, that we have no reason to stay here; because here, in our own home, our own city, the city in which we spent our youth, so few things remain alive for us and we are oppressed by a throng of memories and shadows.

He had not as yet mastered day to day reality, but this—for which he felt a simultaneous desire and disgust—was impregnable and forbidden to him; and so he could only look at it as if from an infinite distance.

There has been a war and people have seen so many houses reduced to rubble that they no longer feel safe in their own homes which once seemed so quiet and secure. This is something that is incurable and will never be cured no matter how many years go by.

The world no longer appears to us as a monstrous contrivance but like a simple, smiling little island populated with friends: we do not thank God for such a lucky change in our fortunes because we no longer think about God;

we dress and comb our hair with infinite care, and overcome the desire to go out in an old raincoat and shapeless shoes; the right person might just happen to be on the corner of the street.

we had a vocation, a profession that was dear to us, and now as soon as we give it half our attention we feel guilty and rush back to this unique, heart-rending tenderness; a sunny day, a green landscape, signify for us only that our baby can get brown in the sun or play on the grass;

we are astonished that this is what being an adult is—not in truth everything we believed as a child, not in truth self-confidence, not in truth the calm ownership of everything on earth. We are adult because we have behind us the silent presence of the dead, whom we ask to judge our current actions and from whom we ask forgiveness for past offences:

money which is not simply kept in a desk drawer but which accumulates who knows where and which can at any moment be sucked back into the earth, disappearing for ever and swallowing up both house and family.

The true defence against wealth is not a fear of wealth—of its fragility and of the vicious consequences that it can bring—the true defence against wealth is an indifference to money.

in general I think we should be very cautious about promising and providing rewards and punishments. Because life rarely has its rewards and punishments; usually sacrifices have no reward, and often evil deeds go unpunished, at times they are even richly rewarded with success and money. Therefore it is best that our children should know from infancy that good is not rewarded and that evil goes unpunished; yet they must love good and hate evil, and it is not possible to give any logical explanation for this.

if he suffers from injustice there or is misunderstood it is necessary to let him see that there is nothing strange about this, because in life we have to expect to be constantly misunderstood and misinterpreted, and to be victims of injustice; and the only thing that matters is that we do not commit injustices ourselves.