I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.
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
-
-
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.
PETRARCH -
Ruthless striving, overcomes everything.
PETRARCH -
Who over-refines his argument brings himself to grief.
PETRARCH -
Love is the crowning grace of humanity.
PETRARCH -
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!
PETRARCH -
It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
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.
PETRARCH -
Man has not a greater enemy than himself.
PETRARCH -
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.
PETRARCH -
It is better to will the good than to know the truth.
PETRARCH -
Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.
PETRARCH -
How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!
PETRARCH -
Death is a sleep that ends our dreaming. Oh, that we may be allowed to wake before death wakes us.
PETRARCH -
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.
PETRARCH -
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.
PETRARCH