Leopardi's work "Thoughts" was published a few years after his death, in 1845. It is essentially a distillation of Leopardi's conclusions on morality. Extending to private life the principles and truths articulated by Machiavelli in political terms, Leopardi reveals the hidden motives even behind the noblest actions, identifies deceit and falsehood as the foundation of social life, and describes a world where the grand alliance of the wicked, the hypocrites, and the mediocre reigns supreme against everything good and true.

A timeless mirror of all human societies and all eras!