It is plain that a constitution is simply medicine for a sick body. Which medicine would be alien to that body, and yet the latter could not live without it. So the imperfection of the illness has to be compensated for with another imperfection. And thus the constitution is merely a necessary imperfection of the government, an indispensable evil serving to remedy or obstruct a greater evil, much like a cauterization in an individual suffering from rheumatism. (307)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

There is not, nor has there been, nor will there ever be a people, or perhaps an individual, that does not suffer difficulties, cares, and sorrows (and these not few in number or trivial) derived from the nature and intrinsic and innate defects of its government, whatever it has been, is, or may be. (295)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Human pleasure (likewise probably that of every living being, in the order of things as we know them) can be said to lie always in the future, to be only in the future, to consist purely in the future. The act of pleasure, strictly speaking, never takes place. (290)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

As the richest of us would gain no honor by lavishing money upon those peoples who neither know nor esteem gold or silver, indeed, if he had no other way of winning esteem would be placed lower than the low and would not satisfy even his most essential needs with his money, so, where intelligence or wit have no value, or when no one understands how to appreciate them, the most intelligent, cleverest, greatest man, if he has no other gifts, will be despised and placed among the lowliest. It is the same where he has a certain kind of intelligence or wit that is not admired in that country. It is the same in relation to the times. In each place and at each time, one must spend the local currency. (258)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Happiness can be found only in the perfection of which a being is capable. A being is not perfect if all of its faculties are not perfectly in accord with one another, perfectly developed according to their nature, and if each of these does not enjoy its proper object to the full extent of its capability. It is not perfect if it does not conform to the laws resulting from its nature. But in order to conform to them, it needs to know what they are. Therefore, man cannot be happy unless he knows himself and the necessary relationships he has with other beings. (227)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

It would be as well for philosophers to get it clearly into their heads that life in itself has no importance whatsoever. What is important is living it well and happily, or at least, or even above all, not living it badly and unhappily. And so they should ascribe usefulness not to those things which simply ensure or preserve life, considered simply as an end in itself, but rather to those which make it worthwhile, that is, really hap[py. But the only thing that makes it truly happy is the false, and every happiness founded on truth is profoundly false, or we could say, every happiness proves to be false and empty when its object is recognized in its reality and truth. (215)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

The corruption of customs is deadly for republics, but useful to tyrannies and absolute monarchies. This alone is sufficient to judge of the nature and difference of these two sorts of government (194).

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

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 cause 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.

Suffering or despair that arises from great passions or illusions or any misfortunes in life is not comparable to the drowning feeling that results from the certainty and vivid sense of the nothingness of all things, and the impossibility of happiness in this world, and from the immense void you feel in your soul. (114)

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Since everything beautiful and good in this world is pure illusion, and virtue, justice, magnanimity, etc., are all pure fantasies or products of the imagination, the science that seeks to reveal all those truths, that nature has shrouded in such profound mystery, without putting revealed truths in their place, must of necessity conclude that the only choice in this world is to be completely egoistic and always do whatever profits or pleases us most (107).

Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.