"There are a precious few whose studies are sound and honest and whose goal is truth and virtue. This is the knowledge of things and the improvement of moral conduct. … As for the others, of whom there is an enormous mass, some seek glory, an insipid, yet gleaming prize. But the majority aims only at the gleam of money, which is not only a rather poor reward, but dirty, and neither equal to the trouble involved, nor worthy of efforts of the mind."
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Petrarch, “On the Various Academic Titles,” De remediis utriusque fortune, C. Rawski, trans. (1967), pp. 72-73
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Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (or Petrarch) (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) was an Italian Roman Catholic scholar, poet, and early humanist. Petrarch and Dante are considered the fathers of the Renaissance.
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