All Quotes

"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"