All Quotes

"[...] Croce always felt at ease with artists who were fully “sliricati”, totally adhering to a fundamental motif, to a unified state of mind. Artists such as Ludovico Ariosto and Giovanni Verga seemed to have been born especially for him because every page they wrote contained him in his entirety. (p. 43)"

"Croce, for his part, was less Crocean than many of his followers because his temperament and taste were almost never overwhelmed by his theoretical schemes. (p. 46)"

"Years ago, a curious debate took place in England: the poet Eliot wondered how it was possible to admire the work of a poet (in this case Goethe) whose ideas and conception of life were not accepted. The problem was declared insoluble. Yet the problem had already been solved by Marx, an admirer of Greek tragedy, which arose from a social structure and a conception of the world that was certainly not his own. Even Friedrich Nietzsche did not deny the art of Richard Wagner when he declared that Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was an attack on civilisation, and he did not pose the problem because he recognised that there is no necessary cause-and-effect relationship between aesthetic admiration and ethical consent. In any case, such a problem cannot arise in Italy because Croce has been there. (p. 51)"

"An internationally renowned novelist, Arthur Koestler, whose most popular book earned him a flattering review from Benedetto Croce, recounted in “The Earth's Foam” how Croce's philosophy was our daily topic of conversation even in the concentration camp. (p. 59)"

"1 Q. What are we taught in the Sixth Article: He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty?"

"Prisons are places conducive to reading philosophical texts. Silvio Spaventa, Croce's uncle, spent his years of life imprisonment well, meditating on the works of Hegel. (p. 61)"

"Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?""

"In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre."

"Often, people find it in their interest not to think, or they lack the energy and intellectual perseverance necessary to think seriously. But if they think, overcoming the practical obstacles that stand in the way of thinking, they can arrive at the truth. (p. 67)"

"If thought is truth, then, if it encountered no obstacles, it would consist in the contemplation of itself. (p. 68)"

"Carlo Antoni noted in his essays on Croce that the struggle over the distinction between activity and between ethical and economic-political practice initially changed, unnoticed by its author, the perspective of the entire edifice. Turning, in “'Filosofia della pratica”', with still only speculative interests, to the consideration of politics, Croce was critical, above all, of humanitarian, Enlightenment, egalitarian democracy. (p. 72)"

"Among the sailors and workers of Kronstadt, who rose up in early 1921 against the party's totalitarian dictatorship, there were many who had fought in the ranks of the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the Soviet revolution. Trotsky, who led the fierce repression of this rebellion, nevertheless succeeded in portraying them as instruments of the counter-revolution. (pp. 104-105)"

"As leader of the victorious Red Army, and as an overwhelming public speaker and brilliant writer, Trotsky, who before joining Bolshevism in 1917 had been an independent left-wing socialist, enjoyed great popularity. However, he lacked the skills for behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, faction-building, intrigue and cunning, which, especially in a dictatorship where open dissent and public political debate are prohibited, counted more than anything else. These were qualities, if they can be called that, which the party's general secretary, Stalin, possessed in abundance. (p. 105)"

"Stalin improvised the economic programme with top-down planning for rapid industrialisation and the forced collectivisation of the countryside, accompanied by the physical liquidation of millions of reluctant peasants. It was a new civil war won by the totalitarian state, which propaganda, as false as it was effective, defined as the immediate realisation of socialism, arousing waves of genuine enthusiasm among the younger generation and, at the same time, using coercive measures of unlimited brutality. (p. 106)"

"Vittorio de Caprariis, Eugenio Montale, Leo Valiani, Benedetto Croce, Edizioni di Comunità, 1963."

"Leo Valiani, Terrore a porte chiuse, in Storia illustrata, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano, n. 339, February 1986, pp. 104-112."

"RRAG Director Suhas Chakma described the attacks' methodology: "Fires were deliberately set on temple, residential homes, and haystacks. The doors of Hindu and Buddhist homes were locked from the outside before being set on fire. The aim was to brunt them alive. The Chittagong region has witnessed the maximum number of arson on the Hindu minorities in Mirsarai and Raozan.""

"The report also documented 17 Hindu murders between late December 2025 and early January 2026. "Furthermore, at least 17 Hindu minorities were murdered in targeted violence from 31st December 2025 to 1 January 2026. Earlier a number of murders were committed in a Taliban style by slitting the throats, such as, of Rana Pratap Bairagi, Shanto Chandra Das, Jogesh Chandra Roy and Suborna Roy. However, Chanchal Chandra Bhowmik was murdered after setting on fire on the garage where he was sleeping," Chakma added."

"Chakma criticized this stance: "This denial of any religious angle by the authorities has emboldened the religious fundamentalists. The victims out of fear of reprisal often described the targeted burning down of the houses as 'accidents or foul play' despite attempt to burn them alive to death or being made destitute after burning all their assets and belonging.""

"Herodotus describes the great victory of Tomyris thus:[1.214] “Tomyris mustered all her forces and engaged Cyrus in battle. I consider this to have been the fiercest battle between non- Greeks that there has ever been…. They fought at close quarters for a long time, and neither side would give way, until eventually the Massagetae gained the upper hand. Most of the Persian army was wiped out there, and Cyrus himself died too.”"

"Herodotus tells us more about the life of the Mahājaṭa: [1.215] “These Massagetae are like the Scythians in their dress and way of life. They are both cavalry and infantry (having some of each kind), and spearmen and archers; and it is their custom to carry battle-axes.” [1.216] “They never plant seed; their fare is their livestock and the fish which they take in abundance from the Araxes. Their drink is milk. The sun is the only god whom they worship; they sacrifice horses to him; the reasoning is that he is the swiftest of the gods, and therefore they give him the swiftest of mortal things.”"

"Influence exercised by the Jesuits, in their golden age, was largely due to the far-seeing policy of Aquaviva, who is undoubtedly the greatest general that has governed the Society."

"Acquaviva was chosen by a strong majority. His subsequent career justified the wisdom of the choice."

"A negative precept of natural law which prohibits a thing intrinsically evil can never be lawfully transgressed not even under the influence of the fear of death."

"I never found humanity, in the human instruments around me, so hopelessly wicked, so unworthy of consideration, or so barren of noble minds in lowly station, as it is customary to represent it; to engage, if possible, all the generous and good-hearted to love and esteem each other, to become incapable of hating any one; to feel irreconcilable hatred only towards low, base falsehood; cowardice, perfidy, and every kind of moral degradation. It is my object to impress on all that well-known but too often forgotten truth, namely, that both religion and philosophy require calmness of judgment combined with energy of will, and that without such a union, there can be no real justice, no dignity of character, and no sound principles of human action."

"I am the wind on the sea; I am the wave of the sea; I am the stag of seven battles; I am the eagle on the rock I am a flash from the sun; I am the most beautiful of plants; I am a strong wild boar; I am a salmon in the water; I am a lake in the plain; I am the word of knowledge; I am the head of the spear in battle; I am the god that puts fire in the head; Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills? Who can tell the ages of the moon? Who can tell the place where the sun rests?"

"In reality, Croce made a graft. The distinction became dialectical transition, opposition and overcoming. The vital and economic moment, innocent in itself, became, in its collision with other forms, the negative, the ugly, the error, the evil. Humanistic harmony was broken, and the rupture of equilibrium, the internal contrast, became the driving force of becoming and overcoming... But above all, one must ask whether the “graft”, which is always an artificial operation, has really been successful. This is the question that dramatically troubled Benedetto Croce until the very end."

"In his essays on Croce, Carlo Antoni noted that the struggle over the distinction between activity, and between ethical and economic-political practice, initially changed the author's perspective on the entire structure, albeit inadvertently. Turning, in “'Filosofia della pratica”', with still only speculative interests, to the consideration of politics, Croce was critical, above all, of humanitarian, Enlightenment-inspired, egalitarian democracy."

"After criticising Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel so much for establishing a system of categories that predetermined the path that spiritual development had to follow, the neo-Hegelians of Italy were unable to do anything other than replace it with a more restricted set of categories from which we cannot escape. What a beautiful story, deluding itself that it is walking when in reality it is always standing still in the small circle of those few forms, marking its steps in a monotonous rhythm! But life has little respect for these a priori assumptions; it teaches us that spiritual categories, no less than the physical-mathematical categories of space, time, cause and quantity, are schemes that we construct to coordinate our experiences, and that they have nothing fixed, nothing necessary or eternal that can be deduced a priori."

"The truth is not something ready-made outside of us, which we should merely reproduce, as the old empiricism believed; but it is an ever-new product of our cognitive activity that elevates the world of experience to a higher form of life. It is commonly said that in the search for truth we must strive to reflect objective reality; but this is an absurd claim, because no one can ever step outside of experience to compare their ideas with so-called things in themselves."

"Any truth is not universal in the intellectual sense that it is thought identically by everyone, but only insofar as there is a practical agreement based on certain explicitly formulated or implied conventions."

"Friedrich Schiller, accepting Kant's legacy of the intelligible self and the sensible self, distinguishes two aspects that we can only divide abstractly in human beings and on which our analysis must stop: the person, who remains constant, and his or her changing states. (from “'Logos”', II fascicle p. 110)"

"In Kant's troubled criticism, there is all the torment of Christianity; in his theory of radical evil, the dogma of original sin persists, however philosophically transfigured. Schiller rightly wrote to Goethe: “There is always something in Kant, as in Luther, that reminds us of the monk who, even after leaving the cloister, cannot erase its traces from himself.” (from “'Logos”', II issue, p. 113)"

"Human perfection is not beyond the sensible world, but in the harmonious development of all human faculties in their integral certainty. from “'Logos”', II fascicle p. 113)"

"The legalisation of abortion does not oblige any woman to have an abortion if she does not want one. It does not oblige anyone to consider abortion morally legitimate. It only allows all those who cannot or do not want to continue with a pregnancy to do so in the best conditions, without “paying” an excessive price for a choice which, I repeat, is never trivial. On the contrary, those who want to criminalise abortion not only seek to impose their conception of the world and morality on others, but are also “indifferent” to the tragic consequences that a return to clandestine abortion could have for many women."

"In the case of abortion, every woman knows that the problem is not only about her body, but also about an “impossible relationship” with a child that, for often different reasons, she does not want or is unable to have. I defend it above all because the legalisation of abortion is the only possibility that exists, in a civilised state, to guarantee respect for women. Not only because the life of a woman – who exists, lives, suffers, acts – is infinitely more precious than that of a being who is not yet born, but also because I am convinced that it is not enough to live for one's life to have meaning."

"Motherhood is neither a necessity nor a curse. It is an extraordinary experience that allows a woman, when she decides to become a mother, to reconcile the famous division between body and soul, without this meaning that female desire is identified with the desire for motherhood. During pregnancy, biological time imposes itself on biographical time, but never completely erases it. A woman's body becomes a space in which the mother and her unborn child enter into a relationship. Women have the opportunity to experience a very special condition: on the one hand, they identify with their changing bodies; on the other, they distance themselves from them, sometimes to the point of estrangement. The internal movements are no longer just their own. They belong to another creature that is beginning to live. It is the very boundaries of the maternal body that open up."

"In some respects, there are no words that ring true to describe motherhood. It is not a natural condition, nor is it a socially induced need. [...] During pregnancy, it is not only a woman's body that changes, but also her imagination. And, within this imagination, the child is often burdened with many expectations. Motherhood is not “just” a woman's adventure; it always involves others too: grandparents, the father, and, of course, the child who will be born and who has the right, in turn, to be cared for and fully recognised."

"In adult videos, the role of women is extremely codified. Women are there to literally embody the “vulgar Aphrodite” of whom the ancient Greeks spoke, that is, a kind of icon of animal femininity, the corrupt and corrupting woman that men seem to need to satisfy their sexual desires. Unlike the “celestial Aphrodite”, the wife or partner worthy of becoming the mother of his children, the “vulgar Aphrodite” can be treated as a mere trinket."

"Everything is much more complicated and problematic, however, when, instead of understanding that human beings are a mixture of good and evil, we grow up with the conviction that the “objects” of the world can be classified as “good objects” and “bad objects”. Because, ultimately, it is this type of mechanism that dominates when, as adults, men feel compelled to believe that there are two categories of women: madonnas and whores."

"Self-esteem does not solve all problems, and it is not insufficient self-esteem that causes the marginalisation of women. On the contrary, precisely because they are marginalised and constantly devalued, women find it difficult to value themselves."

"The vicious circle in which many women find themselves today is always the same: they find it difficult to assert themselves to others, both in their personal and professional lives, but they are very good at blaming themselves and becoming discouraged when they encounter difficulties or are criticised. [...] If men stopped criticising and started encouraging women, however, they would lose some of the power they try so hard to maintain and would therefore, at least from their point of view, be “shooting themselves in the foot”. It is up to us women to learn to do without men's recognition and to help each other to begin to recognise the value of what we do and who we are."

"Until they stop perceiving themselves as men see them, women will not be able to build self-esteem on their own. [...] To regain self-confidence, women cannot simply “decide” or “impose” it on themselves. They must gradually learn not to depend on the gaze of men; not to feel beautiful only when a man tells them so; not to feel good only when their boss or professor approves of them."

"Unlike girls, who quickly find themselves confronted with a particular aspect of their femininity when they start menstruating, boys find it more difficult to understand what it means to become men. The construction of “masculinity” depends greatly on the cultural and social environment to which young people belong. In some environments, for example, boys learn that to become men, they must display arrogance, violence and contempt for women. Masculinity then becomes a precious commodity that must be protected against all attacks that may come from the weak, from “sissies” and from homosexuals. Masculinity, a distinctive sign of manhood only when it demonstrates the inferiority of women, drives these young men in disarray to lash out against all those who “waste” it. It is no coincidence that the most violent attacks against homosexuals come precisely from those who despise women and consider them inferior to men."

"Barbie was our icon. Her success depended on her perfect body, regardless of her profession or age. Barbie was always impeccable and sublime. Barbie was always heterosexual and married. Barbie was always happy and successful. The life represented in the world of Barbie was, therefore, mythical and unattainable. The girls of my generation grew up believing that anything was possible and that “wanting” was enough to “be able”. Barbie succeeded; why shouldn't we succeed too? After all, we just had to learn to “control” ourselves: control our bodies, control our emotions, control our needs."

"The world often calls a man fortunate who has many fortunes. As always, the world is mistaken. Fortunate is the man who can find his own being reflected in the being of another spirit, for he truly lives his life to the full. (p. 4)"

"The problem for women suffering from anorexia is not hunger. Because in reality, anorexics [...] are always hungry. They have an enormous appetite. A hunger that constantly haunts them, precisely because they “cannot” and “must not” eat. The real problem with anorexia is the feeling of omnipotence that arises when you feel you can control everything, even hunger. In their emaciated bodies, anorexics defy death, even as they carry it around like a medal to show off; they defy desires, denying the body's basic needs, even as desire can no longer emerge; they defy social norms in order to feel free, even as they construct for themselves a system of uncompromising laws that they can never transgress."

"The more women try to assert themselves as equal in dignity, value and rights to men, the more men react violently. The fear of losing even a few crumbs of power makes them aggressive, brutal and vulgar. [...] These are men who do not accept female autonomy and who, often out of weakness, want to control women and subjugate them to their will. They use violence (from verbal to physical and sexual) for fear of losing their power: their attitude is perceived as “normal”; it is part of the script of masculinity to which they generally adhere deeply."

"Paradoxically, the “decline of the patriarchal empire” goes hand in hand with an increase in violence against women. The emancipation of women has not yet led to the hoped-for balance. On the contrary, men's need to demonstrate their superiority takes on extremely disturbing forms. Behind rape there is almost always a need to humiliate women, a desire to leave a mark on these beings who continue to be considered inferior."

"As time goes by, Italy is witnessing a systematic attack on feminist achievements. Whether it is degrading representations in the media or sexist language used in politics, the result is always the same: to “put women in their place”, reminding them that their “natural” place is beside men, silent and aware of male superiority. Ultimately, the political system and the television system are wonderfully intertwined and reflect a very precise view of gender roles. Men have the right to speak. Women must limit themselves to being beautiful and keeping quiet."