“I always used to think that the falling in love of a young man gave a savour to all his virtues, and that, even if he were a perfect sink of iniquity, Love would suffice in an instant to raise him to the stars.”
Act I., Scene I. — (Fabritio).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 328.
L’Alessandro (1544)
Original
Io per mi pensava che in un giovine l'esser innamorato fusse il condimento di tutte le sue virtù, e che se ben alcun fusse una profonda sentina di vitii, Amor fusse bastante a sollevarlo in un momento fino a le stelle.
Fabritio: Atto I, scena I
L'Alessandro
Variant: Io per mi pensava che in un giovine l’esser innamorato fusse il condimento di tutte le sue virtù, e che se ben alcun fusse una profonda sentina di vitii, Amor fusse bastante a sollevarlo in un momento fino a le stelle.
Source: Citato in Harbottle, p. 328.
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Alessandro Piccolomini 9
Italian writer and philosopher 1508–1579Related quotes
Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 81 - 82
Context: It was always accounted a virtue in a man to love his country. With us it is now something more than a virtue. It is a necessity. When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.
Men who have offered their lives for their country know that patriotism is not the fear of something; it is the love of something.
“He was the kind of man everyone would fall in love with, even if they didn't want to.”
The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 39
Context: Our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth not Him to love us. Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love. But He willeth that we take heed thus that He is Ground of all our whole life in love; and furthermore that He is our everlasting Keeper and mightily defendeth us against our enemies, that be full fell and fierce upon us; — and so much our need is the more for we give them occasion by our falling.
Epilogue. Compare: "Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, memb. 1, subsect. 2.
The Honest Man's Fortune, (1613; published 1647)
Source: Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing
in [1, John, 4:12, KJV]
First Letter of John
Source: All the Pretty Horses