Petrarch Quotes

Tempo da travagliare è quanto è 'l giorno.

You, my friend, by a strange confusion of arguments, try to dissuade me from continuing my chosen work by urging, on the one hand, the hopelessness of bringing my task to completion, and by dwelling, on the other, upon the glory which I have already acquired. Then, after asserting that I have filled the world with my writings, you ask me if I expect to equal the number of volumes written by Origen or Augustine. No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds? As for Origen, you know that I am wont to value quality rather than quantity, and I should prefer to have produced a very few irreproachable works rather than numberless volumes such as those of Origen, which are filled with grave and intolerable errors.

This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away the results of the vigils and labours of the most illustrious men of genius, things of more value, I am almost tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world.

And what is the use of knowing many things if, when you have learned the dimensions of heaven and earth, the measure of the seas, the courses of stars, the virtues of plants and stones, the secrets of nature, you still don’t know yourself?

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.

böyle kaçarım ölümün vuruşlarından;
ama hızlı değil kaçışım, arzumun benimle gelemeyeceği kadar,
hep geldiği gibi sessiz yürürüm,
yoksa ölü sözler ağlatır insanları,
oysa ben yalnız aksın isterim gözyaşlarım.

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.

Voi dunque, se cercate aver la mente
anzi l'extremo dí queta già mai,
seguite i pochi, et non la volgar gente.

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

Who overrefines his argument brings himself to grief.

To have displeased evil and ignorant men is the sure sign of genius and virtue...

Among the many subjects which interested me, I dwelt especially upon antiquity, for our own age has always repelled me, so that, had it not been for the love of those dear to me, I should have preferred to place myself in spirit in other ages, and consequently I delighted in history.

Full of a yearning thought that makes me stray away from all others.

Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:

so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed

There is nothing in the world that cannot be done by verses.