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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.

— Petrarch De vita solitaria (1346)

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Luck

More quotes by Petrarch

Peace I do not find, and I have no wish to make war; and I fear and hope, and burn and am of ice.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

And of my raving, shame is the fruit, and repentance, and the clear knowledge that whatever pleases in the world is a brief dream.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

It is better to will the good than to know the truth.

The Renaissance : Essays in Interpretation (1982)

To be able to say how much you love is to love but little.

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

All Petrarch quotes →

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In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1601)

O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?

Horace Satires (-35)

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Petrarch (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.