242 quotes found
"In the end, even the psychiatrist lived in the asylum like the other lunatics. A strange life, perhaps paradoxical, perhaps absurd, but all in all true. When it had to be established that things were not right, the comparison was with the lives of healthy people. A normality that, if I had to define it, I could only describe as pathological, since for the inhabitants of the asylum it is the “outside” that is abnormal."
"I believe that the perception of being children of God, not in the sense of a statement of principle but of an experience that attests to their involvement, must be an extraordinary existential condition, capable of giving strength and removing many of the doubts and disappointments that the human condition activates and feeds."
"In their own way, non-believers are frequent visitors to churches: they love them as intimate places, as special museums where they can admire art and music, but there they find themselves wondering about the miracle of that presence which, after two thousand years, still fills the whole earth and the lives of so many people."
"The non-believer is someone who feels the limits of their own existence, and who, while using reason and considering it the best way to solve many existential problems, and certainly as a scientific tool, wants to push it further to question the mystery."
"The priest seems to me to be the most appropriate person to talk about death: he knows that it is not a subject for despair."
"The old priest now knows that man errs, and that this often produces only temporary effects, so that what ultimately makes complete sense is precisely prayer."
"I don't know if the present time has brought us great benefits, but it has certainly invented a lot of fears."
"The most beautiful dimension is that of the priest who has nothing, but who is an integral part of an active and attentive community, within a flock that loves him."
"Despair is madness. Madness, the perception of the impossibility of living: being there, but as if not being there. Despair as an experience of madness is incompatible with life. It sees death, plans death, and kills itself and the other. Despair is a madness possible to man, to all men; it is, in fact, a perspective of man, linked to his need to be with others, to the fact that he cannot live alone, because human life is not solitude but sharing, belonging, attachment. Killing is a moment of infinite and incurable despair, and then the world appears useless and harmful and an individual perceives himself as irreducible to the world, as an alien, as an alienated person. A human feeling, possible, compatible with normality. Killing is linked to the madness of normality, to that capacity of man which, when in crisis, instead of helping him to live, transforms him into death and pushes him to kill and ruin himself, to kill himself. Madness is different from a clinical point of view, but also from a legal one (the inability to understand and intend: an infirmity that has arisen, preventing the human machine from functioning). I see madness as a mechanism that mirrors that of despair, of the feeling of the end: the incomprehensibility of the world, pulling out of it. Still being on the planet without knowing it. Close to others without needing the other. Even losing the memory of words and their meaning, giving up on communicating. Schizophrenia is an extraordinary example of this: being in the world as if the world were ending and as if being had no meaning, since all meaning is based on relationships. The schizophrenic is an island, a monad locked in a cell of existence, in a prison of the world. In isolation because that way they can still breathe. Life that comes closest to death. In short, madness already has to do with death, though not in its physical representation, but in its psychological representation, personality, and social representation, relationships. There are three kinds of death: that of the body, the most emblematic and absolute; that of the mind, which allows the body to remain active and even to take on an air of elegance; and then social death: deprived of every dimension, as if we had become transparent and, even within a crowd, no one could see us. The madman is a dead man who walks and breathes. If he kills, he does so without despair, perhaps out of anger; he is a corpse who kills. Madness has already overcome despair and for this reason lives without living, lives as if dead and, if it kills, kills already dead."
"The memory of images is stored within us, and it is to this that we attach our feelings."
"Fear is a defense mechanism that allows us to be aware of danger and therefore to take action to avoid its consequences."
"Isn't choice already an expression of freedom, even if only a basic one?"
"I deeply believe that priests are figures of great importance for non-believers."
"Dr. John Seward is the director of the Purfleet asylum, and throughout my reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula, I felt as if I had returned to San Giacomo della Tomba, my old asylum. For this reason, among others, the book literally drew me into its pages with the kind of engagement that only great writers can achieve. [...] If a novel has this ability, it is a masterpiece and needs no further proof. It is the mark that each reader leaves on it, and when they put it back on the shelf, it is almost as if they are separating themselves from something they have entered into and can only leave knowing that the book is there waiting and can be reread at any time."
"Dracula is a psychiatric novel in the sense that it focuses on strange behavior. The word madness is frequently used."
"(About Abraham Van Helsing) He is a psychiatrist, although he has many other specialties: he is a surgeon but also practices hypnosis, which he does regularly with Mina. He was one of Dr. Seward's teachers. He deals with the occult sciences: a term that well expresses the attempt to heal the contradiction between positivism and mystery."
"‘'The case of Renfield’', although fictionalized, does not lose its connotation of psychiatry and that of the time. On the contrary, it serves to raise a very pressing issue at the time: the relationship between mental illness, a natural phenomenon, and demonic possession, which is an extra-natural phenomenon. The psychiatric category that best lends itself to this issue is that which allows for rapid changes in behavior and thought. Renfield goes from a phase of excitement and delirium to a state of calm and apparent normality. Renfield's delirium is the need to feed on living creatures in order to obtain vital energy for himself and thus not die. To this end, he asks for sugar, which he places on the windowsill of his hospital cell to attract flies, which he then swallows. A subsequent phase is to encourage the development of spiders that feed on flies and then swallow them. And the next plan is to have mice that eat spiders and cats that eat mice, so that by eating cats he gains extraordinary vital energy. His whole life is conditioned and focused on this idea."
"A two-stage illness, disorder-disappearance of the disorder (normality), focuses attention because it is closest to demonic possession: when the demon possesses the body, the possessed person exhibits behaviors that disappear immediately when the demon leaves as a result of some therapy (exorcism). Dr. Seward's interest in Renfield probably stems from Kraeplin's discovery of manic-depressive illness in 1895: in the same patient, a phase of mania can be followed by a phase of depression in temporal sequence."
"While Renfield represents psychosis, Lucy represents neurosis. The hysteria that Bram Stoker uses in his novel is what we would today call “dissociative,” leading to a split personality. And with this form, he brings us back to the theme of antithetical behavior in the same personality: Lucy's hysteria is expressed through sleepwalking, which manifests itself in actions that the young lady performs in a state of unconsciousness, of trance, even if it is a trance in motion. This is an extraordinary condition, as it allows one to have experiences and encounters without remembering them when one returns to a waking state. And it is during her sleepwalking phase that she falls prey to Dracula."
"Blood is life; without blood, one is exhausted, close to the end. After sucking blood, Dracula has strength and even becomes young. Without it, he cannot live among the dead. Even in the present day, there are countless references to this symbolism, which take on religious expressions: Christ transforms bread into the body and blood of the Lord and thus gives life to men. He transforms it into blood because the body cannot live without blood. Moreover, when he dies on the Cross, he gives all his blood, so much so that the evangelist notes: water flowed from his side. He had given everything."
"Sucking is the gesture of life, the way in which a newborn baby lives. It attaches itself to the breast and devours it. Life passes from the mother to the child, who sucks it in. It remains a gesture full of charm, and in adult erotic games, sucking plays an important role: once again, it is a symbol of vital force. Dracula has none of the oral aggression of those who eat; on the contrary, he never eats, he only sucks. And in this, he has remained at the gesture of newborn life, the primary movement par excellence: if the child did not know how to suck, it would die."
"Among the possible metamorphoses of Dracula, the most significant, so much so that it has become known to all, is into a bird, a bat. The symbolism of the bird is boundless and is also part of life. The penis is popularly called a bird: precisely because it rises and in that flight gives life, the seed. The bat is a strange creature, we might say perverse: both because it belongs to the mammals and not to the bird species, and because it is nocturnal and at night becomes a bird of sin, of the forbidden. It also has the characteristics of attracting and repelling. During the day, it has no life and remains hanging limply in a cave, while in the dark it is reborn and continuously searches for its prey in that unstoppable flight. Blood therefore recalls the bird-penis, and the image of the ‘baptism of blood’ with Mrs. Mina attached to Dracula's chest, in a position reminiscent of fellatio, is evocative."
"We must now have the courage to say that the count even manages to soften us, to make us feel sorry for him. After all, he is not the monster with superhuman and unstoppable strength, one of those who appear on today's screens of stupidity. Dracula is still a man, he was one while he was alive, in the historical sense of the term; he was a hero, one who saved his people from the Turks, and at that time, the word ‘Turk’ brought to mind evil and extreme violence. A dead character yet full of needs: during the day he must return to a coffin hidden in the ground of the cemetery where he was buried, so much so that he must always carry it with him. He is terrified of good or signs of good: the silver crucifixes and consecrated wafers that Professor Van Helsing uses as his weapons of defense. He is a monster who is afraid and who can be defeated, so much so that this is the conclusion of the story."
"The strength of this novel, however, lies in the great and ever-present theme of the struggle between Good and Evil. A titanic struggle that moves from the everyday scene to the tragedies of the classical period and throughout literature with a capital L. After all, Dracula is Evil, even if he has a charm that sometimes captivates, and the group of characters who eliminate him represent Good, not least because they act in the name of Good."
"Professor Van Helsing is the priest of Good who, given the times, does not wear the robes of a monk or priest, but the garb of science. And so he interprets well the period in which the action takes place: positivism. A priest, therefore, who uses reason, the power of science, but who does not forget the sacred, magical instruments."
"Interviewer:Exhibitionists Andreoli: Of course, this is the mask that hides masochism. And keep in mind that, generally speaking, exhibitionism is a sexuality disorder. Showing off one's organ, but not because it is powerful. To compensate for impotence."
"[Second symptom of Italy's mental illness] Ruthless individualism. And mind you, I mean this adjective. Because a certain amount of individualism is normal, one must have one's own identity to which one attaches esteem. But when it becomes ruthless..."
"[The British] never talk. Instead, we talk even when we listen to music or read the newspaper."
"Interviewer: You can't joke about faith. Andreoli: Not faith in God, let's leave that aside. I'm talking about believing. Thinking that tomorrow, at eight in the morning, there will be a miracle. Then whether it's God, Saint Januarius, or anyone else, it doesn't matter. In short, to be clear, we live in a disaster, in a sewer, but we believe that tomorrow morning at eight there will be a miracle that will change our lives. We're waiting for Godot, who isn't there. But try explaining that to Italians."
"Interviewer: Hidden masochism, ruthless individualism, acting, belief in miracles. We're in a terrible state, Professor Andreoli. Andreoli: That's right. No psychiatrist can save this patient that is Italy. I can't even take away these symptoms, because without them you would feel dead."
"All it takes is a hundred people willing to die as suicide bombers, strapping explosives to themselves, to render ridiculous the system of certainty and the certainty of power on this earth, of the potentates of this world."
"Well, if I have been, and am, a good psychiatrist, if I have helped my crazy patients, it is because of my fragility, because of the fear of a madness that lurks within me, because of the fragility that I feel capable of splitting me in two, of taking away my will to live and making me like a depressed person who only wants to disappear in order to erase the pain that shapes him."
"The Song of Songs speaks of necessary love: being two makes it possible to exist for those who separately would not have made it, would have broken."
"Pain is a quality of being fragile."
"Pain is the primary source of fragility because it breaks you and you feel shattered, unable to put the pieces you see in yourself back together; indeed, you are a pile of fragments, grains of sand that should come together and shape, sculpt a man."
"Pain makes more noise than any other noise."
"The limit of energy becomes the limit of civilization, of a civilization that seems to be one of well-being and that at times appears to be a civilization of waste."
"Marriage is my life with her and our children, but none of us can say that it has been a forty-year trip out of town."
"Marriage is the greatest of human frailties, capable of producing good and incapable of avoiding evil."
"The powerful do not believe they need to be resurrected because they think they are unshakable, like the Eiffel Tower made of iron and not flesh, soulless, cold as a railroad track."
"The powerful do not know how to love; the man of iron is cold, he knows how to envelop and bind in order to subjugate, to enslave."
"The sense of belonging. This is marriage."
"The old man lives on the dead and awaits death."
"Love has nothing free about it, because fear does not allow this utopia to be exercised."
"Man would not survive in the dark without a light bulb to illuminate a page to read or to power a computer on which to type a new world, which also depends on energy."
"The end is not a distant appointment, but a present that perpetuates itself, and so we die continuously and are dead even when we breathe."
"The fragility of fine Murano glass or Bohemian crystal: beautiful, elegant, but it takes very little for it to shatter and turn into useless fragments. Knowing its nature, one must be careful how one uses it, how one preserves it: one must keep it away from places where impetuous actions are performed, because otherwise that fine glass becomes nothing, just a memory."
"Fragility remakes man, while power destroys him, reducing him to fragments that turn to dust."
"Jealousy is the fear of being alone, now that the perfect formula for wholeness has been found, which means completion, security."
"My fragility leads me to love, so love is the answer to a need born of fragility, of the perception that without the other, my being in the world is doomed only to death, to non-existence; and the loneliness of the glass man is the worst of all diseases, of the diseases of living."
"Fear is not only linked to physical pain, to the feeling of no longer functioning, it also attaches itself to well-being, which has a mental and social dimension, to how one lives with one's personality within that environment made up of relationships."
"The perception of the end is within each of us, it is a stigma of the species, a mark of its transience."
"The presence of the divine in the world should serve to calm the visceral pride and sense of human omnipotence that exalt power and domination."
"Repetition has always been the source of certainty."
"Old certainties appear as gross errors, and there is now a need to educate, and to do so urgently, at a time when no one knows what it means anymore, since for several generations, throughout the 20th century, this term has not been used, obsolete and with the flavor of something dirty and perverse."
"Violence does not make history, it is not a difficulty that can be worked through, but simply a war that leads only to the death of love and sometimes even of its protagonists."
"Beliefs in heaven, populated by the living, express well the denial of death and the desire to remain."
"In the family, where daily disagreements have disappeared, dramas made up of extreme behaviors arise."
"To accept defeat, you have to believe in those who decree it, you have to be sure that the competitions are not rigged, that they do not become a business, but that they are conducted with absolute respect for skills and talents, whatever field they may be in."
"If your neighbor is antisocial and does not like your noise, he turns on his own and cancels yours."
"We sell them weapons, because the disease of power has spread everywhere, and they throw away every resource, even human lives, to wage and win wars, wars of misery."
"Sometimes you lose because you didn't choose the right field of trial."
"An adult man cannot be reduced to an active and productive man."
"(Commenting on the 1904 law on mental hospitals, inspired by the principles of the anthropological-positive school and Cesare Lombroso) Prison and Psychiatric hospital are consistently two ways of defending against criminals and the insane, particularly against their dangerousness. The insane are not responsible for their actions (and therefore not punishable), but for this very reason their wishes cannot be respected when it comes to committing them to an asylum: the will of the community must prevail over that of the individual. Insanity, after all, could not be cured, only restrained and contained: this was the task of psychiatry. (Il manicomio del 1904, p. 50)"
"Madness is an integral part of culture, and the madman is a citizen of society, even when he is confined to an asylum. It is not possible to understand madness by dealing only with madness. On the other hand, one cannot have a complete picture of a society without the chapter on its madness. (Intorno alla follia, p. 62)"
"Even for history there is a “principle of indeterminacy” and here too, in defining some facts, one must give up describing others. The impression arises that many accounts of a historical period are possible depending on what one chooses and consequently eliminates. And it is impossible to tell a story without making choices. (Intorno alla follia, p. 63)"
"The name Gustave Le Bon recalls that of Gabriel Tarde, who in 1890 published ‘'The Laws of Imitation’' and argued that the psychological phenomenon of imitation can explain all forms of social bonding and all the secrets of social life. With Tarde, the sociological dispute was already alive. It was this author, in contrast to the dominant sociologist of the time, Émile Durkheim, who claimed that the era of non-psychological sociology (that of Durkheim, in fact) was over. If Auguste Comte is the founder of sociology, Tarde deserves credit for founding social psychology. (Intorno alla follia, p. 65)"
"While scientific discoveries, however great, may not have immediate repercussions on lifestyle and daily life, it is precisely technology that brings about immediate practical upheavals, usually considered positive. Science always changes ideas (of science itself or of culture), while technology has little impact on them and mostly only indirectly through the subversion of ordinary processes of existence. (Intorno alla follia, p. 70)"
"Frank Wedekind, actor and playwright, focuses his performances on sex and its perversions with the aim of exposing the hypocritical respectability of the bourgeoisie of the time. He proposes the morality of erotic impulse as an alternative to bourgeois morality. (Intorno alla follia, p. 79)"
"In 1950-51, Maxwell Jones invented, as an alternative to psychiatric hospitals, small therapeutic communities made up of patients and psychiatric and social workers, managed on the basis of collective participation and dynamics that were intended to bring out the abilities and qualities of each individual. The model of the extended family or village will go beyond psychiatry to apply to the problems of marginalization (from prisoners to drug addicts, the disabled, and the elderly). (La società o la fabbrica della follia, p. 131)"
"Falsification is a term that has entered everyday language. It was introduced by Karl Popper. Every scientific result must be questionable and, therefore, imperfect, the starting point for new experiments for progressive, but never definitive, perfection. Scientific research is the never-ending story of corrections to previously obtained data, a story that has the limits of Tantalus. The definitive is dogmatism; it can be asserted but not proven. The great system of Bacon and Galileo has been decisively destroyed, precisely in the method that founded it. (Requiem per la verità, p. 333-334)"
"Paul Feyerabend described science as a place of anarchy based not on logical-rational method but on protocols, the tools of the trade. Science is, therefore, a ‘relative’ discipline, capable of affirming truth only in relation to data conventionally compared: a truth-error. (Requiem per la verità, p. 334)"
"Sexuality is also dying. Once upon a time, the penis had great significance and could be an ideological foundation. Today, it is an appendage of the body without qualities. No plans are made for the penis anymore. It is an intriguing and dangerous organ. It can generate in an overpopulated world. Better the power of an engine. Impotence has never been as high as in the contemporary world. You are male because of your motorcycle, your tattoo, your abdominal muscles, and your beard; the penis has nothing to do with it. (Requiem per la verità, p. 335)"
"Vittorino Andreoli, I miei matti, Rizzoli, 2004."
"Vittorino Andreoli, L'uomo di vetro, Rizzoli, 2008."
"Vittorino Andreoli, Lettera a un adolescente, Rizzoli, 2004."
"Vittorino Andreoli, Preti di carta. Storie di santi ed eretici, asceti e libertini, esorcisti e guaritori, Piemme, 2010."
"Vittorino Andreoli, Preti. Viaggio fra gli uomini del sacro, Piemme, 2010. ISBN 9788856615197"
"Vittorino Andreoli, Tra un'ora, la follia, Rizzoli, 1999."
"Vittorino Andreoli, Un secolo di follia, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, Milano, 1998. ISBN 88-17-11838-9"
"There is a psychological problem, not a legal one: you are mothers, and I don't need to tell you that those nine months are not just a matter of biological growth. There are thousands of studies that show that an emotional bond is established between the mother and the baby in her womb. [...] Women who ask others to carry on with the pregnancy for them? Horrible, Nazism, pure Nazism. You talk about the rights of adults and not the rights of children."
"(About Romanzo criminale) It contributes significantly to helping people not to think, to turn their attention to other things, and that is why the literary and then cinematic product is successful."
"We must give children back their playtime, not put smartphones in their cribs to distract ourselves. I am tech-savvy and in favor of technology, but not as a tool to relieve us of our responsibility for education. Andrea Camilleri wrote a wonderful book a few years ago, L'enciclopedia dei giochi per l'infanzia (“The Encyclopedia of Children's Games"), and Sicily, in its essence, could be a great pedagogical laboratory that bucks the trend. I say this about Sicily, but I could say it about Venice or Naples, about all those places that have an immense cultural heritage."
"The success of these television series, like all films about the mafia or evil in general, can be explained by one simple fact: they attract us because each of us is somehow drawn to evil, but they comfort us and lull us to sleep because they are fiction."
"We are experiencing a strange paradox: no one can say they are lonely anymore, yet we all, to some extent, feel and fear that we are."
"[...] it happened in Veneto, one of the most productive and wealthy areas of the country, in what has been called the engine of Italy. It did not happen in a suburb of the South, catalogued with the usual blah-blah. [...] It is proof that violence and prejudice against women have nothing to do with what the usual four sociologists say. Here we are in the heart of the Northeast. There are villas, well-kept gardens, a world we thought was privileged. And happy. But no. We have money, but not happiness. There are young people who cannot distinguish between feelings: how can you talk about love when you make forty phone calls to a girl?"
"They are wrong to always justify their children. Are the kids doing badly at school? Poor things. Do they get a failing grade? It's the teachers' fault. Do they fail? Appeal to the TAR. We have created children who do not know frustration, who do not know that ‘no’ also exists."
"I'm not a magician, but I don't think it all happened that night; outbursts only happen in comic books. You don't become a wolf overnight."
"People need guidance, and when they can't find it, they invent it. We need an instruction manual for life. But then the instructions are so simple and obvious that one wonders: why don't people follow them? We're not talking about Einstein's insights here."
"Instead of playing with toy trains in the attic, he plays with satellites orbiting the Earth. He's as brilliant as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Now it seems to me that something is making him a little too euphoric... But when a man, from Caesar onwards, passing through Napoleon, thinks he wants to take over the world, at that precise moment he becomes something I don't like: a dictator. Sooner or later, some actor will re-enact the scene of Charlie Chaplin kicking the globe, this time dressed not as Hitler but as Musk."
"(About the television program Belve) What's interesting about it? They've never invited me, and I would never go. Fagnani may be cute, but it's the fault of those who make the program that they have to look for the time you slipped on a banana peel: pure desperation. And teenagers see that we are ruthless. The trash TV we talked about years ago was the precursor to this; now it's animalistic television, in fact they're called “Belve” (Beasts) and “Iene” (Hyenas). There's nothing human about it."
"At the beginning of my career, I was too drastic and perhaps I didn't understand that there's an age for everything. I can afford to do certain things today because I see them from a higher hill, which allows me to broaden my view of things and bring a little more wisdom to bear. I am sometimes criticized for my excesses, my hyperactivity, and I think that criticism is fair, even if in the end it has brought good things, because otherwise I would be just one of many today. And then they accuse me of being blunt, of often taking too clear-cut positions: that too must come with life. I was born to have opinions, but at a certain age, you reach a point where you can speak your mind."
"I am afraid of the life my daughter will have. I can count young people who are great travelers on the fingers of one hand. No one cares that you went to Peru: they're much more interested in someone who takes a selfie with a heart-shaped pout. Today, artistic expression has been reduced to zero, unless you consider dipping a biscuit in your latte to be art, perhaps tagging the bakery so you can get free cappuccinos for the next three months."
"Rudeness in the age of the Internet and technology seems to know no bounds: everything seems to be permitted, respect for others is now an obsolete concept, a habit of old gentlemen resting in some country cemetery."
"Seduction begins with a mole, or rather a difference, something that distinguishes uniqueness. The actresses who have left an indelible mark on our memory are those who had some small flaw: feminine (and masculine) perfection leaves no impression and causes no disturbance; it may work for a photograph or an advertisement, but not for the construction of a myth."
"And if tomorrow our children can finally live in a world where a computer can be absolutely competitive with human intelligence, what will be their task and their destiny? To control megacomputers or be controlled by them?"
"A young talent, however innovative and creative they may be, if they remain isolated, even if connected to the world in a virtual way, will never be able to express themselves as those who have daily opportunities for real contamination."
"Parents need only ask themselves one simple question: if a boy or girl has never wanted for anything, how will they know the need to build something for their own future?"
"All children have talent, as Maria Montessori said, but not all are creative in the same way. To nurture their creativity, we need to make them confident in their abilities and not dependent on anything: a very difficult task for any educator."
"Digital technology is, and must remain, a tool, not an end in itself. With regard to the anthropological changes it constantly proposes, we need to speak words of wisdom and assert common sense. Technocrats are citizens like everyone else, not emperors of the new world."
"Friendship arises from life's opportunities, often from fate, but to become an indispensable feeling, it needs to be based on shared emotions, not emotional mediocrity."
"Friendliness applied to teaching has a relaxing effect on teachers, as it makes them feel magically irresponsible: authority is tiring and must be constantly reaffirmed, while this decadent form of equality requires no effort."
"Hold your head high and don't set limits on your ambition: limits are there to be overcome through passion and ability. It's not true that you have to accept yourself in life; rather, it's essential to know that you can improve yourself, whatever season you're going through."
"Each of us has the right to think that life is a long road, where you can and must try, make mistakes, and try again."
"The task of a psychiatrist is to accompany growth, to accompany pain and not erase it; if anything, they must try to ensure that the damage is not repeated, that it does not sprout a weed that infests one's entire existence."
"On the other hand, I have always thought that the profession of teacher is not and should not be a job for just anyone: a civilized community should know this."
"It is love that acts like a disease, but it works in reverse: it is good when it infects, it kills when it heals."
"New technologies bring with them new responsibilities for adults."
"The idea of limits—and its intrinsic, unfortunately persuasive, pedagogical force—was created to control people, to force them to grow up within a fence, to live in mortification: it constitutes the pedagogical path to frustration, a progressive annihilation of expectations and the most basic existential ambitions."
"Every magnificent man has a weakness that makes him precious."
"Thinking up and broadcasting a program means contributing to the construction of the culture and language of the younger generations, so television cannot exempt itself from playing a primary role in education."
"Those all-black clothes smack of defeat, they reek of collective mourning."
"The courage to educate, which is so greatly needed, lies precisely in the ability to take away, not to add."
"I have always thought that a nursery school works well when a child arrives in the morning clean and returns home in the afternoon dirty: it means that an emotion has passed through him that may have the taste of flour, the color of a marker, the shape of a magnificent plasticine sculpture."
"Indignation is a fierce picklock, a lethal weapon precisely because it arises from oppositional thinking, from special consideration, from an analytical evaluation of what one intends to criticize. It is not a bazooka, but a sharp and astonishing foil. It takes courage to be indignant."
"When art is purely an aesthetic exercise, it is boring and mediocre. Art, representing the human condition, must be disturbing."
"The idea that happiness is a ‘'ready-to-wear’' feeling, easy to find, generates a very low threshold of antibodies against boredom, induces emotional satiety, and this entails, in the medium term, an enormous risk for young people: emotional emptiness, sensory detachment from reality, the absolute denial of desire and passion. (p. 15)"
"Being free has a cost, but not being free costs even more. Being happy is demanding, but not being happy requires even more effort. (p. 42)"
"Every ideology or religious faith should be oriented toward the attainment of happiness, because it is the only way to allow for the hope that tomorrow will be better than today, and not just the same. Then there would not be so many followers and faithful ready to sacrifice themselves in the trenches of the “just cause”; churches would remain deserted and politics would be only an exercise in good government that would not make anyone's fortune. (p. 49)"
"Happiness lies in the courage to challenge oneself, to demand something from one's destiny without letting it run its course without our contribution. (p. 66)"
"Sex and sexuality have been tools through which man has sought happiness. Since common morality has allowed us to engage in sex without love, the belief has spread that it represents a piece of Eden within everyone's reach. In reality, the frantic search for pleasure at all costs has taken something away from the knowledge of our identity, precisely through the trivialization of eroticism, now reduced to free genital exercise. This has led to the erosion of a complex idea of human eros, which should not only not be flattened to the necessity of reproduction, but also not simplified and reduced to a mere meeting of cells, a banal hormonal issue. This is also because genital happiness is among the most ephemeral and leads to premature melancholy. (pp. 79-80)"
"However, there is a happiness linked to eroticism that does not necessarily involve the sexual act. The sense of pleasure and ecstasy, for example. Ecstasy evokes an extraordinary, astonishing image. It means ‘being outside’, the feeling one experiences when one manages to detach oneself without resorting to the repression of one's condition. (p. 81)"
"What is the meaning of ecstasy today? That is, sublimation, the archetype of wonder and enjoyment, the loss of self and rationality, freedom from the obligation to desire. Is there anyone who seeks all this, [...], without artifice, without elaborate recipes? (p. 82)"
"The most contradictory aspect of sex-centric culture is that it coexists with rationality, invokes it. The highest meaning of eroticism lies instead in the courage to detach oneself from one's surroundings, to abstract oneself, to elevate oneself to something else. Courage, a fundamental characteristic of ecstasy, lies in trusting oneself and one's senses, in letting go of all stubborn certainties. Happiness can only be found in unawareness and in the ecstasy that represents it supremely. (pp. 82-83)"
"You should learn that life, like love, is the only business whose balance sheet must end in the red: you have to give everything without calculating what you get in return."
"The body has its seasons, and the youthful ones are not necessarily better than the later ones."
"True travelers are not rich people but curious ones. They are not looking for comfort, but for novelty and surprises."
"My profession has taught me that the most difficult and improbable thing is to change. Yet the pursuit of happiness lies not in preserving, but in the courage to change the course of events."
"Happiness is like a train without a timetable: one comes along every now and then. You cannot predict its arrival, nor know when it will leave again. Your job is to go to the station."
"Illness is a communicative language, not an anarchic mass of crazy cells. Sometimes our body is dissatisfied with the life it leads and complains, tries to resist, criticizes the brain for its choices."
"Loneliness sometimes has unexpected, surprising colors and nuances. It is an empty room where your soul and your sensitivity resonate."
"Unhappiness is a swamp where only surrender and renunciation dwell."
"Never give up on the idea that happiness can't be found for you somewhere in the world. Don't even do it on the last day of your life, because there will always be someone close to you who needs to glimpse it in your eyes."
"I have never believed that a fat person is more unhappy than a thin person, unless they are on the payroll of a fashion company."
"Excessive protection prevents maturation, thus also blocking emotional development and happiness."
"A teacher does not train; they educate and elevate."
"I see a great desire for conformity around me. Young people have breathed this air and tend to reproduce what adults have been developing for some years now: an antagonism towards anything that smacks of risk. And the bad thing is that many young people are likely to apply this to their life plans."
"The puppy must learn that a rule is a rule and does not change according to the mood of the person holding the leash."
"Good ideas in education cost nothing, except the courage to have them and want to implement them."
"Music, as Maestro Claudio Abbado said, is not important for children to become musicians, but to teach them to listen and, consequently, to be listened to."
"The anthropological change in parents and grandparents therefore risks weighing on an already dramatic identity crisis among educators."
"Fill your computer screen with your own ideas, not those of others."
"[...] what the crisis teaches us is that now more than ever we need to go back to thinking, planning, and experimenting."
"In the United States, no economic magnate has ever left this world without first naming a foundation, university, museum, or theater after himself. Here, multimillionaires rush to hide their money in some tax haven to keep it available for their children (who will thus grow up to be boors and multimillionaires)."
"The first and most immediate response that a parent tends to give when faced with an episode of obvious intemperance on the part of their child is to defend them, contravening the most basic rule of educational common sense."
"Reins are not coercive tools, but fundamental pedagogical instruments, just like a rider's spurs. Reins control the most exuberant impulses, while spurs encourage the rider to dare to overcome obstacles, or rather, their own limits."
"Believing in oneself means having faith in others, and therefore in the possibility of relationships, love, help, and solidarity."
"As long as there is thought, there is dignity, and as long as there is the courage to be concerned, there is freedom."
"The ritual of giving is complex; sometimes it is done spontaneously, other times the gift masks a need for blackmail: giving is not free, it always requires something else in return."
"The teenager does not know who they have been and fears that they will not be able to become what they dream of being: self-awareness is the result of a long, complex confrontation between precarious stages of one's identity, and the group allows one to reflect oneself in others, to learn to recognize oneself and others."
"Mediocrity annihilates, flattens, makes everyone the same. Imagination and dreams highlight our inner resources, that is, our very secret of living."
"The word “[work] flexibility” has become synonymous with “exploitation.” The laws that created it have been used by public and private managers to have thousands of young workers at their disposal at low cost, who can be blackmailed on a daily basis simply by waving the specter of termination of their employment contract."
"School should teach us how to be alone, to live our passions, to put emotions at the center of our lives."
"I wonder: is it possible that no entrepreneur has ever reflected on the simple fact that temporary work produces a temporary identity, which is the opposite of the idea of a profession based on passion and merit, which is the only guarantee of quality performance and high productivity?"
"It is not television or the Internet that causes discomfort to children and adolescents, but rather a certain unwillingness on the part of adults to be there for them."
"If you give a child everything, you take away what is essential: desire, the fundamental feeling needed to build passion."
"Without culture, there is no freedom, no choice. There is no social growth, nor real well-being."
"Perhaps, in these years of prosperity, what has been most lacking are lofty figures and examples, such as the magnificent ones that past generations knew."
"Many of us thought, or deluded ourselves, that certain words, certain achievements, could be forever, imperishable, carved by our fathers on the stone of our most glorious history. One of these, the most important, we even took for granted: freedom."
"As long as Western man lived in poverty, he needed to know that he was not alone, and the network of relationships and mutual dependencies was a necessity; but as soon as development distributed some small economic privileges, complicity and solidarity—that is, the awareness that alone we are nothing—became obsolete words, symbols of submission, relics of a time that must be erased from the present, in which the most radical self-sufficiency is exalted. And with it, the never truly dormant sense of one's own superiority."
"This is why the manipulator, today as yesterday, must use simple but effective phrases, words that excite the gut and numb the freest minds."
"How can we fail to understand that when children are not taught from an early age to respect any rules, once they become adults they will suffer from a form of “psychological AIDS” that leads the individual to not recognize (not possessing “specific psychic antibodies”) any form of frustration because they are completely unprepared for failure?"
"I wonder what could be more demeaning for a father or mother than to abdicate their role and responsibilities as parents in order to avoid the headaches inherent in any educational effort."
"Identity, including national identity, is therefore a much broader and freer concept than what many today prefer to tailor for themselves and, claustrophobically, decline. It does not indicate rigidity, but a perpetual flow."
"Even today, for many people, their freedom is built on and based on the non-freedom of others: this has been the case for centuries when slavery was useful for economic development, and it continues to be the case today in new and more hypocritical forms, perpetuating the same arrogance and barbarism as always."
"The idea of taking one's own life is, paradoxically, a vital, slow, and progressive process, which is, all things considered, consistent, because it must lead the individual to accept that outcome as the only way out of their painful, intolerable condition. And to achieve this, strength, determination, perseverance, and also an enormous amount of courage are required."
"Better to find ourselves shipwrecked by passion than grounded and sated by too many comforting reasons."
"How can I now, in their classrooms, explain to these kids that no alarm clock is necessary because it is passion that will keep them awake? Why do so few parents or teachers make them understand this day after day? How can we fail to show our young people that only those who possess great passion can make the impossible possible?"
"Love, just like passion, is anticipation, unlimited trust, wonderful madness, a living and disruptive fire."
"Passion is not a linear feeling; it can never be represented by an algorithm or any artificial intelligence program."
"People don't meet, they choose each other all the time."
"I am repulsed by those who say that everything has a price: this is said by those who have sold themselves a thousand times and find it natural that others should do what they themselves have not shied away from. If Falcone and Borsellino had had a price, they would today be mediocre magistrates, alive but useless, not enduring beacons for consciences."
"Newspapers, websites, and television keep us up to date on events that seem to plunge our community back into a primitive age. Clearly, we have modernized, but we have not become civilized."
"Can't the toxic seed of today's unhappiness be traced back to that silent crowding, that fleeing/escaping, that loss of individual and collective identity? Doesn't a certain metropolitan frenzy resemble the anguished continuous escape of hamsters in a cage that is too small, forced to chase their own tails? Contemporary man tries in vain to escape so as not to have to recognize the shadow of his own soul, so as not to have to come to terms with his own unheard-of unhappiness."
"Just like boredom, melancholy is a fundamental human feeling, a companion on the road to solitude."
"To combat unhappiness, however, we need more than a simple wish, more than mere hope: we need effort, the effort to think about the new, the unseen; the courage to respond to the attraction of the unknown, the unpracticed."
"Sooner or later, everyone experiences the treacherous wind that tears their sails. The important thing is not to become that wind, not to legitimize the torn sail as a symbol of one's existence: this is the real blasphemy, the sacrilege against life."
"Gray is predictable, colors much less so."
"Boredom tells us that everyday life has become predictable, that a change is needed, a breath of fresh air. In short, boredom announces its opposite."
"The tendency to avoid experiences of fatigue and pain influences all forms of emotion. This leads straight to the most terrible form of anesthesia: indifference."
"Speed prevents us from recognizing ourselves, just like those trains that fly over beautiful countryside, preventing us from smelling its scents or recognizing its flowers."
"Freedom means doing different things together, the opposite of what happens in a hypermarket."
"In education, elegance is as fundamental as charisma."
"I, on the other hand, stayed. It's true that there is a certain age difference between me and my sisters, yet I couldn't free myself from that burden as they had done, without regrets, without guilt. I remained, tenacious or determined, but always with hatred; a hatred that I deluded myself into thinking was directed only at him, at the other, but which instead silently sank into me, too deep inside. I remained attached to that poisoned root as if my confusion had knocked me out. Then, as if my senses had suddenly awakened, I took revenge: I don't know exactly what for, since it was my weakness that made me stay. This compulsion was sick, I knew that all too well. It was a morbid and perverse bond that forced me to exaggerate just as my father had done with his sexual harassment. (p. 17)"
"I could only give in without mediation, so much had the smell of the crash taken hold of me, engulfed my mood, ruled my senses. I detested my inability to resist, yet I was flattered by his blatant and brutal desire to have me totally and immediately. I knew full well that if I had to fall, I might as well do so as disastrously as possible. And so it was. (p. 21)"
"I experienced acceptable melancholy, brief moments of predictable despair, long moments of narcosis. I had learned to love that losing restlessness, almost to take pleasure in it. Perhaps it was the pain, the detachment, and the squalor that I had needlessly experienced in the years that had passed so quickly that made me fear my evening solitude too little. (p. 25)"
"It has been raining for three days; I haven't worn my contact lenses in I don't know how long. I feel like I can't leave the room anymore. The cold and damp have clumped together this suspended time, squeezing out a melancholic juice: inevitably forcing me to think. I am curled up on the bed, wearing three sweaters on top of each other, to no avail. The rain has interrupted the road works that haunted me, deafening and exhausting like a discordant fanfare. Either the noise or the rain, either way boredom. Either way, the emptiness. An emptiness that is even understanding, never bitter. A complacent emptiness that has crept inside me as silently as poison. I have known it for a long time, it no longer surprises me. (p. 59)"
"I tried to do it on my own. For a while, I thought I had succeeded, and I was even pleased with myself. Then I felt myself slipping. I didn't fall, but, unseated, it was as if my foot had remained trapped in a stirrup and my body was forced to drag itself along, wounded and helpless. Every day my resistance crumbled more and more: I lived in the nightmare that this creaking would overwhelm what was left of me at any moment. (p. 66)"
"Marriage is the ultimate tribute to a loving union, but it also involves exercising understanding and adapting to the other person, that is, to their different individuality."
"Self-esteem is not built with parties and nice clothes, but in the difficult moments of life."
"Words can hurt or soothe; we should all learn to use them better."
"A pinch of jealousy can work wonders, but two can spell disaster."
"Maurizio Andolfi, Vittorino Andreoli, Edoardo Boncinelli, Eugenio Borgna, Bruno Callieri e Paolo Crepet, Perché siamo infelici, Einaudi, Torino, 2010. ISBN 978-88-06-20271-2"
"Mario Botta, Paolo Crepet e Giuseppe Zois, Dove abitano le emozioni. La felicità e i luoghi in cui viviamo, Einaudi, Torino, 2007. ISBN 978-88-06-19016-3"
"Paolo Crepet, Baciami senza rete. Buone ragioni per sottrarsi alla seduzione digitale, Mondadori, Milano, 2016. ISBN 978-88-04-66881-7"
"Paolo Crepet, Cuori violenti. Viaggio nella criminalità giovanile, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1995. ISBN 88-07-17005-1"
"Paolo Crepet, Dannati e leggeri, Einaudi, Torino, 2004. ISBN 88-06-17246-8"
"Paolo Crepet, Educare oggi, Enea, Milano, 2012. ISBN 978-88-9557-291-8"
"Paolo Crepet, Elogio dell'amicizia, Einaudi, Torino, 2012. ISBN 978-88-06-21260-5"
"Paolo Crepet, Gli incontri sbagliati, Mondadori, Milano, 2005. Supplemento a Donna Moderna."
"Paolo Crepet, I figli non crescono più Einaudi, Torino, 2005. ISBN 88-06-16979-3"
"Paolo Crepet, Il caso della donna che smise di mangiare, Einaudi, Torino, 2015. ISBN 978-88-06-21262-9"
"Paolo Crepet, Il coraggio. Vivere, amare, educare, Mondadori, Milano, 2017. ISBN 978-88-04-68186-1"
"Paolo Crepet, Impara a essere felice, Einaudi, Torino, 2013. ISBN 978-88-06-21261-2"
"Paolo Crepet, Impara a essere felice, Einaudi, Torino, 2015. ISBN 978-88-06-22466-0"
"Paolo Crepet, L'autorità perduta. Il coraggio che i figli ci chiedono, Einaudi, Torino, 2012. ISBN 978-88-06-21580-4"
"Paolo Crepet, L'eros, Mondadori, Milano, 2005. Supplemento a Donna Moderna."
"Paolo Crepet, La gioia di educare, Einaudi, Torino, 2008. ISBN 978-88-06-19497-0"
"Paolo Crepet, Le dimensioni del vuoto. I giovani e il suicidio. Feltrinelli, Milano, 2000. ISBN 88-07-81586-9"
"Paolo Crepet, Le malattie della disoccupazione. Le condizioni fisiche e psichiche di chi non ha lavoro, Edizioni Lavoro, Roma, 1990. ISBN 88-7910-443-8"
"Paolo Crepet, Libertà, Mondadori, Milano, 2019. ISBN 978-88-04-71872-7"
"Paolo Crepet, Naufragi. Tre storie di confine, Einaudi, Torino, 1999. ISBN 88-06-15338-2"
"Paolo Crepet, Non mi chiedere di più, Barney Narrazioni, Siena, 2014. ISBN 978-88-98693-04-7"
"Paolo Crepet, Non siamo capaci di ascoltarli. Riflessioni sull'infanzia e l'adolescenza, Einaudi, Torino, 2001. ISBN 88-06-15785-X"
"Paolo Crepet, Passione, Mondadori, Milano, 2018. ISBN 978-88-04-70533-8"
"Paolo Crepet, Sfamiglia. Vademecum per un genitore che non si vuole rassegnare, Einaudi, Torino, 2009. ISBN 978-88-06-19842-8"
"Paolo Crepet, Solitudini. Memorie di assenze, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1997. ISBN 88-07-17022-1"
"Paolo Crepet, Sull'amore. Innamoramento, gelosia, eros, abbandono. Il coraggio dei sentimenti, Einaudi, Torino, 2010. ISBN 978-88-06-20300-9"
"Paolo Crepet, Voi, noi. Sull'indifferenza di giovani e adulti, Einaudi, Torino, 2003. ISBN 978-88-06-1666-94"
"Paolo Crepet, Francesco Florenzano, Il rifiuto di vivere. Anatomia del suicidio, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1989. ISBN 88-359-3307-2"
"Emotions are boundless; there are strong emotions and weak emotions, emotions that cannot help but expand conversation and dialogue with others. On the other hand, there are emotions that shut down this dialogue, ultimately making our ongoing relationships with others more difficult."
"Ultimately, and in a nutshell, it is to escape death that we invented language, art, philosophy, and politics."
"Graves are made for the living."
"Fairy tales teach us that fear should not be locked away in an inaccessible closet inside ourselves, but felt, experienced, and confronted."
"The image that lives within us is linked to our conception of life and also to the difference we make between dying and death."
"In the term dying, living also remains “alive”; in the word death, life disappears."
"Actions only make sense if we try to grasp their meanings."
"Italians are, in practice, illiterate. It is an emotional illiteracy that prevents us from understanding others."
"An economic crisis, however serious, never has such a profound impact on the individual conscience as the desolate lack of meaning that characterizes depression."
"Some ideals are strong bulwarks, while others fade away, leaving behind an unsustainable backlash."
"Nothing gives a person the same strength to resist adversity and pain as Christian, Pascalian hope."
"When certainties fail, we can only save ourselves on that raft where solidarity with others gives meaning to our sacrifice."
"Only an inner education allows us to look at reality and distinguish what really matters."
"Let us take the examination of conscience, a Christian expression that seems so dinosaur-like, so obsolete. In reality, this examination taught us to look inside ourselves every evening, to see what we had done wrong, and therefore our limitations, and then to ask for help to change: which already implied a new hope for the day to come."
"The very act of praying every morning introduces us to a day that is more open to hope; which is never just for ourselves, but also for others, and even for those we do not know."
"This, after all, is the greatest rationality: knowing that life is much more than all our accounts, than all our reasonable predictions."
"We must educate ourselves to recognize our inner resonances when we meet others, work, and dream."
"The experience of infinity, in all its forms, brings us closer to God."
"Depression pushes us to fully grasp what we are experiencing, and thus our ability to understand others also increases."
"The category of the future is the one that is most erased today from an existential and psychological point of view."
"Where there is an experience of pain, the perception of the insufficiency of external, ephemeral, temporary pleasures immediately grows, and the desire for something that transcends the contingent grows."
"If our eyes are wet with tears, eyes that allow us to empathize with the inner life of the sick person, with their pain, to see the wounded soul deep in their eyes, then we will be able to help."