Cesare Pavese - Suicide Quotes

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To choose a hardship for ourselves is our only defense against that hardship. This is what is meant by accepting suffering. Those who, by their very nature, can suffer completely, utterly, have an advantage. That is how we can disarm the power of suffering, make it our own creation, our own choice; submit to it. A justification for suicide.

Cesare Pavese

At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defences. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.

Cesare Pavese

Nowadays, suicide is just a way of disappearing. It is carried out timidly, quietly, and falls flat. It is no longer an action, only a submission.

Cesare Pavese

Here's the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition.

Cesare Pavese