“High state, the bed is where misfortune lies,
Mars most unfriendly, when most kind he seems,
Who climbeth high, on earth he hardest lights,
And lowest falls attend the highest flights.”
Chè fortuna quaggiù varia a vicenda,
Mandandoci venture or triste, or buone:
A' voli troppo alti e repentini
Sogliono i precipizi esser vicini.
Canto II, stanza 70 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
Original
Ché fortuna qua già varia a vicenda | mandandoci venture or triste or buone, | ed a i voli troppo alti e repentini | sogliono i precipizi esser vicini.
II, 70
Gerusalemme liberata
Variant: Chè fortuna quaggiù varia a vicenda,
Mandandoci venture or triste, or buone:
A' voli troppo alti e repentini
Sogliono i precipizi esser vicini.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Torquato Tasso 94
Italian poet 1544–1595Related quotes
Attributed without citation in Ken Robinson, The Element (2009), p. 260. Widely attributed to Michelangelo since the late 1990s, this adage has not been found before 1980 when it appeared without attribution in E. C. McKenzie, Mac's giant book of quips & quotes.
Disputed
Variant: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 200
Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 171.
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p.112
As quoted in Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (1985) by Carl W. Ernst, p. 45
Variant translation: Allah, Most High, is the very One Who Himself affirms His Unity by the tongue of whomsoever of His creatures He wishes. If He affirms His Unity in my tongue it is He Who does so, and it is His affair. Otherwise, my brother, I myself have nothing to do with affirming Allah's Unity.
As quoted in "Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj" at Sidi Muhammad Press http://www.sufimaster.org/teachings/husayn.htm
Context: God, Most High, is the very one who Himself affirms His unity by the tongue of whatever of His creatures He wishes. If He Himself affirms His unity by my tongue, it is He and His affair. Otherwise, brother, I have nothing to do with affirming God's Unity.
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)