Un male incerto provoca inquietudine, perché, in fondo, si spera fino all'ultimo che non sia vero; ma un male sicuro, invece, infonde per qualche tempo una squallida tranquillità." - Meaning and context.">
An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.
• Il Disprezzo (Milano: Bompiani, 1954) p. 77; Angus Davidson (trans.) Contempt (New York: New York Review of Books, 2005) p. 75.
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Un male incerto provoca inquietudine, perché, in fondo, si spera fino all'ultimo che non sia vero; ma un male sicuro, invece, infonde per qualche tempo una squallida tranquillità.

— Alberto Moravia

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Un male incerto provoca inquietudine, perché, in fondo, si spera fino all'ultimo che non sia vero; ma un male sicuro, invece, infonde per qualche tempo una squallida tranquillità." in the context of "An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.
• Il Disprezzo (Milano: Bompiani, 1954) p. 77; Angus Davidson (trans.) Contempt (New York: New York Review of Books, 2005) p. 75." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Alberto Moravia" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Alberto Moravia

About Alberto Moravia

Alberto Moravia (November 28, 1907 – September 26, 1990), born Alberto Pincherle, was an Italian fiction-writer, screenwriter and essayist. His novels were initially attacked by the Fascist government and placed on the Index by the Catholic church, but later won great critical and popular success.