QuoteProject
The contradiction [trying to use Russian model to reshape Italy] grew to such an extent that I felt totally cut off from the communist world and, in the end, from politics. That was fortunate. The idea of putting literature in second place, after politics, is an enormous mistake, because politics almost never achieves its ideals.
Italo Calvino
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Literature should take precedence over politics, as politics often fails to fulfill its ideals.

In this quote, Italo Calvino expresses his disillusionment with the political realm, particularly the communist ideology that seeks to reshape cultures like Italy. He emphasizes the importance of literature and artistic expression as superior to political ambitions, arguing that while politics seeks to achieve noble goals, it frequently falls short, thus rendering literature, with its capacity to explore deeper truths, more significant and meaningful.

Themes

LiteraturePoliticsIdealsDisillusionmentArt

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary discussion about the importance of artistic integrity over political agendas.

More from Italo Calvino

The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Italo CalvinoRead
Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment when you make the big leap; the opportunity to express yourself is offered that once, and you untie the knot within you then or never again.
Italo CalvinoRead
...and every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells.
Italo CalvinoRead
Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.
Italo CalvinoRead
The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.
Italo CalvinoRead
Fantasy is like jam. . . . You have to spread it on a solid piece of bread. If not, it remains a shapeless thing . . . out of which you can’t make anything.
Italo CalvinoRead

Similar quotes

Let the voice of the people be heard!
Albert ParsonsRead
The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance; forgiveness is the offspring of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness.
Giacomo CasanovaRead
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.
Khalil GibranRead
They say if one understands himself, he understands all people. But I say to you, when one loves people, he learns something about himself.
KhalilRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.