Along with a return to the classics, humanism emphasized the potential of the individual and the capacity of each human being to strive for perfection. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Italian Renaissance humanist and Neoplatonist, discusses the perfectibility and potential of man in the Oration on the Dignity of Man. In his speech, Pico della Mirandola creates a message sent from God to humans during their creation. As God speaks to his creation, he says: “to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and your judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine” (Pico della Mirandola). In this comparison, Pico della Mirandola suggests that humans have the capacity to become divine. In other words, humans can aspire and achieve perfection. His speech is filled with similar statements that “address the vocation of the human creature, who possessing no determinate image, is invited to pursue his own perfection” (Dougherty 586). Mirandola clearly states that humans are endowed by their creator with the potential to be perfect, which is a characteristic ideal of humanism. He calls all men to use the potential given to them as he implores: “let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather seek the highest and spend all our strength to achieve it” (Pico della Mirandola). With this declaration, Pico della Mirandola spreads the humanist ideal of perfectibility to his fellow philosophers and to all others; therefore, he is responsible for popularizing and establishing the humanist ideal that all humans have the potential to seek and achieve perfection. The humanist ideals developed by Petrarch and Pico di Mirandola are reproduced in the middle of......paper......to teach students rhetoric and how to speak and write eloquently. These courses also include classical works as an essential part of their curriculum; Students study ancient Greek and Roman mythology and dissect their ideas, themes, and structures. People strive for perfection in their schoolwork, jobs, sports, and relationships. Aspects of humanism are embedded in today's society as well as in the society of the past. Humanism revolutionized the population's way of thinking and conception of life during the Renaissance. Throughout the Renaissance, humanists preached the perfectibility and infinite potential of humanisms and revived classical works and figures. These ideals characteristic of humanism are found in the letters of Petrarch and the speeches of Pico de la Mirandola, and are reproduced in the poems and plays of Shakespeare..