“Behold the state of man's unstable mind,
Still prone to change with every changing wind!
All our resolves are weak, but weakest prove
Where sprung from sense of disappointed love.”
Book XXIX, line 1
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)
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John Hoole 24
British translator 1727–1803Related quotes

Address at Princeton University, "The Educated Citizen" (22 March 1954).
Variant: It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.
"If I Were Twenty-One" in Coronet (December 1955).
This has also been paraphrased "What matters most is not the years in your life, but the life in your years" and misattributed to Abraham Lincoln and Mae West
Context: All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don't be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You'll have more fun, you'll do more and you'll get more, you'll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men.
“The weakest spot in every man is where he thinks himself to be the wisest.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 532.

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.”
Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 39