Francesco Petrarca citáty
Francesco Petrarca
Datum narození: 20. červenec 1304
Datum úmrtí: 1374
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.
Citáty Francesco Petrarca
„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]
„Dva milostné dopisy se píší nejhůř - první a poslední.“
Varianta: Dva milostné dopisy píšeme těžko - první a poslední.
„Neuznávám jiné rozkoše, než učit se.“
Varianta: Neuznávám jiné rozkoše než učit se.
„O Avignonu: Je to stoka, do níž se vlévají všechny neřesti a nečistoty světa. Pohrdá se tam Bohem, uctívají se tam peníze, pošlapávají se tam zákony božské i lidské. Všechno tam čpí lží: vzduch, země, domy, a hlavně ložnice.“
Zdroj: [Nejedlý, Martin, Fortuny kolo vrtkavé, Praha, 2003, 191, česky]
„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]
„Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.“
— Francesco Petrarca, kniha De remediis utriusque fortunae
De remediis utriusque fortunae (1354), Book II
„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.
„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.
