It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
PETRARCHEvents appear sad, pleasant, or painful, not because they are so in reality, but because we believe them to be so and the light in which we look at them depends upon our own judgment.
More Petrarch Quotes
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Continued work and application form my soul’s nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live.
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Books have led some to learning and others to madness.
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For though I am a body of this earth, my firm desire is born from the stars.
PETRARCH -
You keep to your own ways and leave mine to me.
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The greater I am, the greater shall be my efforts.
PETRARCH -
When the poet died his cat was put to death and mummified.
PETRARCH -
Who over-refines his argument brings himself to grief
PETRARCH -
Five enemies of peace inhabit with us – avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
PETRARCH -
Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.
PETRARCH -
Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?
PETRARCH -
Where are the numerous constructions erected by Agrippa, of which only the Pantheon remains? Where are the splendorous palaces of the emperors?
PETRARCH -
I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth.
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I have taken pride in others, never in myself.
PETRARCH -
I desire that death find me ready and writing, or if it please Christ, praying and intears.
PETRARCH -
How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!
PETRARCH