Friday 19 July 2024

20 July: Petrarch quotes

The poet Petrarch was born on this date in 1304. 10 quotes:

  1. Man has not a greater enemy than himself.

  2. Five enemies of peace inhabit with us – avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

  3. It is more honourable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.

  4. Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

  5. All pleasure in the world is a passing dream.

  6. Life in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.

  7. The aged love what is practical while impetuous youth longs only for what is dazzling.

  8. Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

  9. The end of doubt is the beginning of repose.

  10. Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

 

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.


The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.





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