Leopardi on the Pity Party

Are you feeling down on yourself, and your ability to make art? Be cheered; according to Leopardi, this could be a good sign.

"If an artist, scientist, or intellectual of whatever discipline is in the habit of comparing himself not to other members of his discipline but rather to the discipline itself, then the more intelligent he is the lower will be his opinion of himself. For his sense of his own inferiority grows in direct proportion to his deepening knowledge of his discipline. That is why all great men are modest."

Giacomo Leopardi, in Pensieri