“For Leopardi, unhappy hedonist that he was, what is unknown is always more attractive than what is known; hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience. Man therefore projects his desire into infinity and feels pleasure only when he is able to imagine that this pleasure has no end.”
Italo Calvino
Six Memos for the Next Millennium: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1985-86
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