“The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. When this sensation is lacking—as when one is in prison, or ill, or stupid, or when living has become a habit—one might as well be dead.”
Cesare Pavese, from his collection of essays This Business of Living, Nov. 23, 1937.
Other memorable quotes from this work:
“The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”
“The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows.”
“There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot, do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you, and so relieve the pain of the first.”
