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.
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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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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And tears are heard within the harp I touch.
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For style beyond the genius never dares.
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How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.
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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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Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
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Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.
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Ruthless striving, overcomes everything.
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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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A good death does honour to a whole life.
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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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I have taken pride in others, never in myself.
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How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!
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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.
PETRARCH