All is nothingness in the world, including my despair, which any man who is wise but also calmer, and I myself certainly at a quieter time, will see as vain, irrational, and imaginary. Wretched me! Even this pain of mine is in vain, nothing. After a certain time it will pass and turn to nothing, and leave me in a universal emptiness, a terrible apathy that will not even let me lament (75).
Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone