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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.
Petrarch
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Interpretation

What this quote means

We cherish life not just out of habit, but because of our capacity to love, which is both rational and irrational.

This quote emphasizes the duality of love by highlighting that our appreciation for life stems from our ability to love deeply. While love can seem irrational or mad at times, it is also grounded in reason and understanding, suggesting that both aspects coexist and enhance our experience of life.

Themes

LoveLifeMadnessReasonAppreciation

In practice

Example use cases

During a wedding speech to emphasize the importance of love in life.

More from Petrarch

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.
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Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
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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.
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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.
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Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
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Quote by Petrarch | QuoteProject