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.
PETRARCHFor death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.
More Petrarch Quotes
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A good death does honour to a whole life.
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Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.
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Continued work and application form my soul’s nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live.
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You keep to your own ways and leave mine to me.
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I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.
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Books can warm the heart with friendly words and counsel, entering into a close relationship with us which is articulate and alive.
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For style beyond the genius never dares.
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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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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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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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Reality is always the foe of famous names.
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Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
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I have taken pride in others, never in myself.
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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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For though I am a body of this earth, my firm desire is born from the stars.
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Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.
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Hope is incredible to the slave of grief.
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I have friends whose society is delightful to me; they are persons of all countries and of all ages; distinguished in war, in council, and in letters; easy to live with, always at my command.
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Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.
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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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Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another’s woe.
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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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Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.
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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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Life in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.
PETRARCH