The nobel Prize winning author Elias Canetti observed that “all the great aphorists read as if they knew each other well”. They also often read as if they had access to each others’ notebooks. Was it Kafka or Chamfort who claimed “Revenge is so sweet one often wishes to be insulted so as to be able to take revenge”? Was it E.M. Cioran or Oscar Wilde who claimed that “Man gets used to anything, but never to doing nothing”? And surely it was Montaigne or Machiavelli who suggested “Having a high opinion of oneself is the first precondition both for morality and for noble and honourable ambitions”?Well, actually, it wasn’t any of the above. All of these aphorisms are from the pen of Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), one of Italy’s