Francesco Petrarca citáty

Francesco Petrarca byl italský spisovatel a básník, který svým dílem navazoval na Danta a spolu s ním bývá někdy považován za předchůdce a jakéhosi duchovního otce humanismu renesance. Měl smysl pro přírodu, pro hory a turistiku, dalo by se říct, že byl jedním z prvních alpinistů.

✵ 20. červenec 1304 – 1374
Francesco Petrarca foto
Francesco Petrarca: 87   citátů 179   lajků

Francesco Petrarca nejznámější citáty

„Nejvíce nenáviděni jsou ti, kteří se dostanou vlastní silou ze společné klece.“

Varianta: Největší závist vzniká vůči těm, kteří vlastní silou vzlétli a tak unikli ze společné klece.
Varianta: Nejvíc závidíme těm, kteří vlastní silou vzlétli a unikli tak ze společné klece.
Zdroj: [Vaněk, Zdeněk, Kaleidoskop, Zdeněk Vaněk, Plzeň, 2009, 1, 420, 978-80-254-5071-0, http://kaleidoskop.webz.cz/Kaleidoskop.pdf, 13]

„Neuznávám jiné rozkoše, než učit se.“

Varianta: Neuznávám jiné rozkoše než učit se.

Francesco Petrarca citáty a výroky

„Dva milostné dopisy se píší nejhůř - první a poslední.“

Varianta: Dva milostné dopisy píšeme těžko - první a poslední.

„Kdo se snaží svou náruživost uzdou rozumu ovládati poznávaje, že povznáší se nad zvíře jenom tou měrou, kterouž užívá svého rozumu: totě pravý člověk.“

Zdroj: [Novák, Jan Václav, Vorovka, Karel, Kniha moudrosti, sborník aforismů a sentencí peadagogických, Bursík a Kohout, 1892, 4, česky]

Francesco Petrarca: Citáty anglicky

“Man has no greater enemy than himself.”

I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.
As quoted in An Examination of the Advantages of Solitude and of Its Operations (1808) by Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

“No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds?”

Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio (28 April 1373) as quoted in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 418
Kontext: You, my friend, by a strange confusion of arguments, try to dissuade me from continuing my chosen work by urging, on the one hand, the hopelessness of bringing my task to completion, and by dwelling, on the other, upon the glory which I have already acquired. Then, after asserting that I have filled the world with my writings, you ask me if I expect to equal the number of volumes written by Origen or Augustine. No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds? As for Origen, you know that I am wont to value quality rather than quantity, and I should prefer to have produced a very few irreproachable works rather than numberless volumes such as those of Origen, which are filled with grave and intolerable errors.

“There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come.”

Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio (28 April 1373) as quoted in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 426
Kontext: Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety.

“Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest.”

As quoted in "Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia" (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 75

“Song, if you find a man at peace with love,
say: 'Die while you're happy,
since early death is no grief, but a refuge:
and he who can die well, should not delay.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzon, s'uom trovi in suo amor viver queto,
di': Muor' mentre se' lieto,
ché morte al tempo è non duol, ma refugio;
et chi ben pò morir, non cerchi indugio.
Canzone 331, st. 6 ( tr. A. S. Kline http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=331)
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.”

Francesco Petrarca kniha De remediis utriusque fortunae

De remediis utriusque fortunae (1354), Book II

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

Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898)
Kontext: I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already warning us that the time was near at hand when we must go. As if suddenly wakened from sleep, I turned about and gazed toward the west. I was unable to discern the summits of the Pyrenees, which form the barrier between France and Spain; not because of any intervening obstacle that I know of but owing simply to the insufficiency of our mortal vision.

“Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live.”

Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio (28 April 1373) as quoted in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 426
Kontext: Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety.

“Those words had given me occupation enough, for I could not believe that it was by a mere accident that I happened upon them.”

Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898)
Kontext: My brother, waiting to hear something of St. Augustine's from my lips, stood attentively by. I call him, and God too, to witness that where I first fixed my eyes it was written: "And 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." I was abashed, and, asking my brother (who was anxious to hear more), not to annoy me, I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. Those words had given me occupation enough, for I could not believe that it was by a mere accident that I happened upon them. What I had there read I believed to be addressed to me and to no other, remembering that St. Augustine had once suspected the same thing in his own case, when, on opening the book of the Apostle, as he himself tells us, the first words that he saw there were, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof."

“To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer.”

Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), "The Ascent of Mount Ventoux" in Familiar Letters http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_letters.html?s=pet17.html as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898); the name Mount Ventosum relates to it being a windy mountain.
Kontext: To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is visible from a great distance, was ever before my eyes, and I conceived the plan of some time doing what I have at last accomplished to-day.

“I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing.”

Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio (28 April 1373) as quoted in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 417
Kontext: I certainly will not reject the praise you bestow upon me for having stimulated in many instances, not only in Italy but perhaps beyond its confines also, the pursuit of studies such as ours, which have suffered neglect for so many centuries; I am, indeed, almost the oldest of those among us who are engaged in the cultivation of these subjects. But I cannot accept the conclusion you draw from this, namely, that I should give place to younger minds, and, interrupting the plan of work on which I am engaged, give others an opportunity to write something, if they will, and not seem longer to desire to reserve everything for my own pen. How radically do our opinions differ, although, at bottom, our object is the same! I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing.

“I certainly will not reject the praise you bestow upon me for having stimulated in many instances, not only in Italy but perhaps beyond its confines also, the pursuit of studies such as ours, which have suffered neglect for so many centuries”

Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio (28 April 1373) as quoted in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 417
Kontext: I certainly will not reject the praise you bestow upon me for having stimulated in many instances, not only in Italy but perhaps beyond its confines also, the pursuit of studies such as ours, which have suffered neglect for so many centuries; I am, indeed, almost the oldest of those among us who are engaged in the cultivation of these subjects. But I cannot accept the conclusion you draw from this, namely, that I should give place to younger minds, and, interrupting the plan of work on which I am engaged, give others an opportunity to write something, if they will, and not seem longer to desire to reserve everything for my own pen. How radically do our opinions differ, although, at bottom, our object is the same! I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing.

“Ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

For he makes a good end who dies loving well.
Canzone 140, last line
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“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.”

Epistola ad Posteros [Letter to Posterity] in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 59

“I shall be what I have been, shall live as I have lived.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Sarò qual fui, vivrò com'io son visso.
Canzone 145, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“Ah new people, haughty beyond measure, irreverent to so great a mother!”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzone 53, st. 6
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“Resembles herself and no other.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Sol se stessa, et nulla altra, simiglia.
Canzone 160, line 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“True is the proverb, one's hair will change before one's habits.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Vero è 'l proverbio, ch'altri cangia il pelo
anzi che 'l vezzo.
Canzone 122, st. 2
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“I am she who gave you so much war and completed my day before evening.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

I' so' colei che ti die' tanta guerra,
et compie' mia giornata inanzi sera.
Canzone 302, st. 2
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“Hidden beauty is sweetest.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Una chiusa bellezza è piú soave.
Canzone 105, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“If it is not love, what then is it that I feel? But if it is love, before God, what kind of thing is it? If it is good, whence comes this bitter mortal effect? If it is evil, why is each torment so sweet?”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento?
Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale?
Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale?
Se ria, onde sí dolce ogni tormento?
Canzone 132, st. 1
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“To obey Nature in all is best.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Obedir a Natura in tutto è il meglio.
Canzone 361, st. 2
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“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.”

Francesco Petrarca kniha De vita solitaria

De vita solitaria (1346) as quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing‎ (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 144

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