Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
Interpretation
Beauty and virtue often do not coexist.
Petrarch suggests that beauty, which often captivates and mesmerizes, is seldom accompanied by deep moral integrity or virtue. This statement reflects a philosophical view on the nature of human qualities, implying that people may prioritize superficial beauty over genuine virtue, leading to a societal disconnect between physical appearance and moral character.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of character over appearance.
Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
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.
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.
True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.
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.
Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
Providence so orders the case, that faith and prayer come between our wants and supplies, and the goodness of God may be the more magnified in our eyes thereby.
Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is that which we perceive as a value.
I'm always fascinated by the way memory diffuses fact.
Man differs more from man than man from beast
The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician.
Nobody gets argued all the way into becoming a believer on the sheer basis of logic and reason. That requires a leap of faith.
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