“If our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied!”

— Pietro Metastasio

Se a ciascun l'interno affanno
Si leggesse in fronte scritto,
Quanti mai, che invidia fanno,
Ci farebbero pietà!
Part I.
Giuseppe Riconosciuto (1733)

Original

Se a ciascun l'interno affanno | Si leggesse in fronte scritto | Quanti mai, che invidia fanno | Ci farebbero pietà!

da Giuseppe Riconosciuto
Variant: Se a ciascun l'interno affanno
Si leggesse in fronte scritto,
Quanti mai, che invidia fanno,
Ci farebbero pietà!

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 4, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied!" by Pietro Metastasio?

Pietro Metastasio 9

Italian poet and librettist (born 3 January 1698, died 12 A… 1698–1782

Related quotes

“If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Letter to Colonel A. F. Rockwell (13 August 1866)
1860s

“We have damaged our reputation in the world and thus reduced our power. We were once seen as the paragon of law; we are now in many corners of the globe the laughing stock of the law.”

Lawrence Wilkerson (1945) Chief of Staff to Colin Powell

Source: Quoted in Lawrence Wilkerson’s Lessons of War and Truth https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawrence-wilkersons-lesso_b_146443, HuffPost, Nick Turse (26 Dec 2008)

“If the next time our governments propose to make war on a helpless civilian population we were to uncover our grief and guilt instead of our anger, how much difference might we make?”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Sorrow (pg. 189)
The Whole Woman (1999)

“Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 4
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

“But there have been those who did not want to work, but wanted to rest on their laurels. They were our enemies. We angered them through our prosperous development, our industry and science, our art and popular education, social legislation, etc. That raised our nation to a high place, and then came envy. Envy caused our opponents to fight, and so the war came over us who had no idea of it.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Address to Officials and Workers at Krupp's (11 September 1918), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 114
1910s