Petrarch Quotes

I cannot have a sufficiency of books. Indeed, I have more than I should... Books give utter delight: they talk with us... and are bound to us by lively and witty intimacy, and do not just insinuate themselves alone on their readers but present the names of others, and each one creates a longing for another.

Blessed be the eyes that saw her while she lived!” 310

Non è sí duro cor che, lagrimando,
pregando, amando, talor non si smova,
né sí freddo voler, che non si scalde.

Since speaking of her eyes calls up the passion in me, and nothing else I do affects me quite so deeply, I must visit often where my sorrow wells up and overflows its boundaries, and thus my eyes are punished with my heart, because they led me on the road to love.

I have not seen you, lady,
leave off your veil in sun or shadow,
since you knew that great desire in myself
that all other wishes in the heart desert me.
While I held the lovely thoughts concealed,
that make the mind desire death,
I saw your face adorned with pity:
but when Love made you wary of me,
then blonde hair was veiled,
and loving glances gathered to themselves.
That which I most desired in you is taken from me:
the veil so governs me
that to my death, and by heat and cold,
the sweet light of your lovely eyes is shadowed.

I wish to go beyond the fire that burns me.

And what good has all your reading done you? Out of all the things you have read, how much has really stayed in your soul, what roots have grown there that will, in a good time, bring forth fruit? Examine your heart carefully. If you compare the whole of what you know with what you don’t know, you will find that your knowledge is like a small stream dried up in the summer heat compared to the ocean of your ignorance. And even granted that you do know a lot, what difference does it make?

And so on earth
our destiny is with us from our birth.

Oh how easy it is to deceive one who is confident!

Peace I do not find, and I have no wish to make war; and I fear and hope, and burn and am of ice.

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.

Inanzi al dí de l'ultima partita
huom beato chiamar non si convene.

One goes many miles to be at ease.

True is the proverb, one's hair will change before one's habits.

I go in silence, since my fatal words would make men weep and what I really want is solitude in which to shed my tears.