"[T]he recognition of the irredeemable vanity and falsity of all beauty and all greatness is itself a kind of beauty and greatness that fills the soul when it is conveyed by a work of genius. And the spectacle of nothingness is itself a thing in these works, and seems to enlarge the reader’s soul, to raise it up and to make it take satisfaction in itself and its despair."
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260, 5th October 1820. Translation by Michael Caesar and Franco D'Intino et al. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, ], p. 177
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giacomo_Leopardi
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