Quotations

«I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will»

«The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.»

«My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall... that is my strength, my only strength.»

«In the life of children there are two very clear-cut phases, before and after puberty. Before puberty the child's personality has not yet formed and it is easier to guide its life and make it acquire specific habits of order, discipline, and work: after puberty the personality develops impetuously and all extraneous intervention becomes odious, tyrannical, insufferable. Now it so happens that parents feel the responsibility towards their children precisely during this second period, when it is too late: then of course the stick and violence enter the scene and yield very few results indeed. Why not instead take an interest in the child during the first period?»

«Pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will.»

«I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn't know where to die.»

«I would like you to understand completely, also emotionally, that I'm a political detainee and will be a political prisoner, that I have nothing now or in the future to be ashamed of in this situation. That, at bottom, I myself have in a certain sense asked for this detention and this sentence, because I've always refused to change my opinion, for which I would be willing to give my life and not just remain in prison. That therefore I can only be tranquil and content with myself.»

«[E]very action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement.»

«To tell the truth is revolutionary.»