"The great modern novel of the comic-pathetic illusion of freedom is Confessions of Zeno."

Italo Svevo Literature See all quotes by Italo Svevo →

React to this quote

More by Italo Svevo

“A novelist who ranks with Proust, Kafka, Musil and his friend James Joyce as one of the enduring pillars of Modernism.”

“You might with advantage take out your map of modern literature and mark on it the name of Italo Svevo…for Svevo and his novel, Confessions of Zeno…will henceforth be on other people's maps, and it is well that the atlases of the enlightened should agree.”

“Zeno is one of the comic masterpieces of the century; as Svevo had previously used Flaubert more intelligently than any Italian before him, here he uses Freud in a way that no Italian has done since.”

“Italo Svevo at Italian Wikisource”

Resonant Thoughts

"The will is a unity of two different aspects or moments: first, the individual’s ability to abstract from every specific condition and, by negating it, to return to the absolute liberty of the pure eg…"

— Herbert Marcuse

Philosophy1898–1979

#freedom

"We have achieved political freedom but our revolution is not yet complete and is still in progress, for political freedom without the assurance of the right to live and to pursue happiness, which econ…"

— Jawaharlal Nehru

Politics1889–1964

#change

"The modern State is by its very nature a military State; and every military State must of necessity become a conquering, invasive State; to survive it must conquer or be conquered, for the simple reas…"

— Mikhail Bakunin

Philosophy1764–1837

#power

"Christianity excludes malignity, subdues selfishness, regulates the passions, subordinates the appetites, quickens the intellect, exalts the affections. It promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, k…"

— Mark Hopkins (educator)

Politics

#love