Giacomo Leopardi Quotes
The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion.
Leopardi, Giacomo. Zibaldone. Translated by Michael Caesar and Franco D'Intino, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.
At the time he was referring to the George W. Bush administration which maintained a passive policy on global warming issues. Gore opined that Bush would be forced to deal with the problem shortly as the scientific and physical evidence was mounting.
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of the most important figures in the literature of the world, as well as one of the principals of literary romanticism; his constant reflection on existence and on the human condition—of sensuous and materialist inspiration—has also earned him a reputation as a deep philosopher. He is widely seen as one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century but routinely compared by Italian critics to his older contemporary Alessandro Manzoni despite expressing "diametrically opposite positions." Although he lived in a secluded town in the conservative Papal States, he came into contact with the main ideas of the Enlightenment, and, through his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and renowned poetic work, related to the Romantic era. The strongly lyrical quality of his poetry made him a central figure on the European and international literary and cultural landscape.
