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Such fire was not by water to be drown'd,
Nor he his nature changed by changing ground.

— Ludovico Ariosto Orlando Furioso (1516)

Nè spegner può per star nell'acqua il foco;
Nè può stato mutar per mutar loco.

Original text (Italian)

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More quotes by Ludovico Ariosto

What a man sees, Love can make invisible—and what is invisible, that can Love make him see.

Orlando Furioso (1532)

Driven raving mad by love—and he a man who had been always esteemed for his great prudence.

Orlando Furioso (1532)

For rarely man escapes his destiny.

Orlando Furioso (1532)

Ah, cruel Love! What is the reason why
You seldom make our longings correspond?
How is it, traitor, you rejoice to spy
Two hearts discordant, one repelled, one fond?

Orlando Furioso (1532)

Reflect, ye gentle dames, that much they know,
Who gain experience from another's woe.

Orlando Furioso (1532)

All Ludovico Ariosto quotes →

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Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes chaos.

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To say that the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident.

Robert F. Kennedy

He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

Samuel Johnson The Idler (1758)

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.)

Bertolt Brecht Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1976)

Attribution

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