Petrarch Quotes

#1. 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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#2. Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown.

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#3. Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

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#4. Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

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#5. 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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#6. Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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#7. 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.

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#8. An equal doom clipp'd Time's blest wings of peace.

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#9. The time will come when every change shall cease,
This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace:
No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze;
Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now shall ever last.

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#10. 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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#11. Hope is incredible to the slave of grief.

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#12. Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.

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#13. 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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#14. A good death does honour to a whole life.

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#15. Books never pall on me. They discourse with us, they take counsel with us, and are united to us by a certain living chatty familiarity. And not only does each book inspire the sense that it belongs to its readers, but it also suggests the name of others, and one begets the desire of the other.

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#16. It is better to will the good than to know the truth,

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#17. Who naught suspects is easily deceived.

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#18. I saw the tracks of angels in the earth: the beauty of heaven walking by itself on the world.

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#19. I know and love the good, yet ah! the worst pursue.

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#20. Virtue is health, vice is sickness.

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#21. And tears are heard within the harp I touch.

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#22. Who over-refines his argument brings himself to grief

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#23. 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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#24. 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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#25. While life is in your body, you have the rein of all thoughts in your hands.

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#26. The aged love what is practical while impetuous youth longs only for what is dazzling.

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#27. How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!

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#28. For style beyond the genius never dares.

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#29. Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.

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#30. I desire that death find me ready and writing, or if it please Christ, praying and intears.

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#31. 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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#32. Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

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#33. How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.

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#34. For though I am a body of this earth, my firm desire is born from the stars.

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#35. For virtue only finds eternal Fame.

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#36. Man has no greater enemy than himself.

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#37. 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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#38. Man has not a greater enemy than himself.

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#39. Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.

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#40. 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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#41. For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.

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#42. I have taken pride in others, never in myself.

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#43. Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another's woe.

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#44. He loves but lightly who his love can tell.

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#45. Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.

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#46. 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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#47. Life in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.

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#48. You keep to your own ways and leave mine to me.

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#49. Wanting is not enough, long and you attain it.

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#50. 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.

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#51. 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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#52. The end of doubt is the beginning of repose.

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#53. 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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#54. 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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#55. 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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#56. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

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#57. I would have preferred to have been born in any other time than our own.

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#58. The greater I am, the greater shall be my efforts.

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#59. All pleasure in the world is a passing dream.

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#60. I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.

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#61. 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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#62. How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!

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