Petrarch Quotes

Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown.

Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another's woe.

Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.

Where are the numerous constructions erected by Agrippa, of which only the Pantheon remains? Where are the splendorous palaces of the emperors?

How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!

He loves but lightly who his love can tell.

Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.

Virtue is health, vice is sickness.

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

Books can warm the heart with friendly words and counsel, entering into a close relationship with us which is articulate and alive

Alack our life, so beautiful to see, With how much ease life losest, in a day, What many years with pain and toil amassed!

For virtue only finds eternal Fame.

Who naught suspects is easily deceived.

From thought to thought, from mountain peak to mountain. Love leads me on; for I can never still My trouble on the world's well beaten ways.

I have taken pride in others, never in myself.

For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.

It is better to will the good than to know the truth,

Death had his grudge against me, and he got up in the way, like an
armed robber, with a pike in his hand.

How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!

Wanting is not enough, long and you attain it.

Who over-refines his argument brings himself to grief

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

I desire that death find me ready and writing, or if it please Christ, praying and intears.

The greater I am, the greater shall be my efforts.

You keep to your own ways and leave mine to me.

And tears are heard within the harp I touch.

What name to call thee by, O virgin fair, I know not, for thy looks are not of earth And more than mortal seems thy countenances.

All pleasure in the world is a passing dream.

For though I am a body of this earth, my firm desire is born from the stars.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

I saw the tracks of angels in the earth: the beauty of heaven walking by itself on the world.

Man has no greater enemy than himself.

An equal doom clipp'd Time's blest wings of peace.

Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

I would have preferred to have been born in any other time than our own.

For style beyond the genius never dares.

The end of doubt is the beginning of repose.

Go, grieving rimes of mine, to that hard stone
Whereunder lies my darling, lies my dear,
And cry to her to speak from heaven's sphere.

Hope is incredible to the slave of grief.

And I live on, but in grief and self-contempt,
Left here without the light I loved so much,
In a great tempest and with shrouds unkempt.

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

I know and love the good, yet ah! the worst pursue.

I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.

Man has not a greater enemy than himself.

Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.

While life is in your body, you have the rein of all thoughts in your hands.

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

A good death does honour to a whole life.

Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.

Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live.