The greater the advantage you have over others, the more necessary it is, if you are to avoid being hated, to be amiable, to be unconcerned, almost dismissive of yourself with respect to them, because you need to treat a causeĀ of hatred that you have but they don’t: an absolute cause, which itself makes you hated without your needing to be unjust, arrogant, etc., etc. (147)
Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.