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.
PETRARCHWhere 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.
PETRARCHHow fortune brings to earth the over-sure!
PETRARCHAnd 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.
PETRARCHDo 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?
PETRARCHAnd tears are heard within the harp I touch.
PETRARCHWho over-refines his argument brings himself to grief
PETRARCHFor style beyond the genius never dares.
PETRARCHA short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.
PETRARCHThe aged love what is practical while impetuous youth longs only for what is dazzling.
PETRARCHI rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.
PETRARCHSameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
PETRARCHContinued work and application form my soul’s nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live.
PETRARCHThe greater I am, the greater shall be my efforts.
PETRARCHAnd 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.
PETRARCHLife in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.
PETRARCHGo, 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.
PETRARCH