For style beyond the genius never dares.
PETRARCHLife in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.
More Petrarch Quotes
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Hope is incredible to the slave of grief.
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And I live on, but in grief and self-contempt, Left here without the light I loved so much, In a great tempest and with shrouds unkempt.
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A good death does honour to a whole life.
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Where are the numerous constructions erected by Agrippa, of which only the Pantheon remains? Where are the splendorous palaces of the emperors?
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The end of doubt is the beginning of repose.
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How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!
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I desire that death find me ready and writing, or if it please Christ, praying and intears.
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For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.
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It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
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Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
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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?
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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.
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Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.
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What name to call thee by, O virgin fair, I know not, for thy looks are not of earth And more than mortal seems thy countenances.
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Go, grieving rimes of mine, to that hard stone Whereunder lies my darling, lies my dear, And cry to her to speak from heaven’s sphere.
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The time will come when every change shall cease, This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace: No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze; Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past, But an eternal now shall ever last.
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Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.
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Alack our life, so beautiful to see, With how much ease life losest, in a day, What many years with pain and toil amassed!
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Events 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.
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I have taken pride in others, never in myself.
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I freeze and burn, love is bitter and sweet, my sighs are tempests and my tears are floods, I am in ecstasy and agony, I am possessed by memories of her and I am in exile from myself.
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I know and love the good, yet, ah! the worst pursue.
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Ruthless striving, overcomes everything.
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How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.
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And tears are heard within the harp I touch.
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Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
PETRARCH