Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.
PETRARCHGreat errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.
More Petrarch Quotes
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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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I have taken pride in others, never in myself.
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Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal!
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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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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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For though I am a body of this earth, my firm desire is born from the stars.
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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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There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.
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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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While life is in your body, you have the rein of all thoughts in your hands.
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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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Books have led some to learning and others to madness.
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To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds.
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When the poet died his cat was put to death and mummified.
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Death had his grudge against me, and he got up in the way, like an armed robber, with a pike in his hand.
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My flowery and green age was passing away, and I feeling a chill in the fires had been wasting my heart, for I was drawing near the hillside above the grave.
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And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.
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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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Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
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From thought to thought, from mountain peak to mountain. Love leads me on; for I can never still My trouble on the world’s well beaten ways.
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Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another’s woe.
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Man has not a greater enemy than himself.
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A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.
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The end of doubt is the beginning of repose.
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Where you are is of no moment, but only what you are doing there. It is not the place that ennobles you, but you the place, and this only by doing that which is great and noble.
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For virtue only finds eternal Fame.
PETRARCH