The book of thoughts (Croce)

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"I libri dei Pensieri vari rappresentavano sempre un grado inferiore dell'intelligenza umana. Sono osservazione spicciole e imprecise, le quali, meditate da persona che pensa e ha testa filosofica, vengono a confondersi in certi più generali princìpi, di cui esse sono o facili corollari o inesatte applicazione. Dico che rappresentano un grado inferiore dell'intelligenza, appunto perché questa relazione di corollario o di applicazioni non è in essi vista né determinata. Il filosofo, che li legge, non ha niente da impararvi, se non forse un certo modo arguto ed epigrammatico di far quelle osservazioni. Modo che, quando c'è, ha poi soltanto valore artistico." -- Pensieri sull'arte (1885), XXVI

The "book of thoughts" always represents an inferior grade of human intelligence. They are penny ante, imprecise observations, the quality of which, meditated by a person who thinks and has a philosophical head, are conferred in some more general principles to which they are either easy corollaries or inaccurate applications. I say that they represent a lower degree of intelligence, precisely because this report of correlation or application is not seen nor determined. The philosopher, who reads them, has nothing to teach us, if not perhaps a certain witty and epigrammatic mode of making those observations. A mode that, when it is there, only then is there artistic value.

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