Petrarch Quotes

I am possessed by one insatiable passion , which I cannot restrain nor would I if I could ... I cannot get enough books .

"Yet have I oft been beaten in the field, And sometimes hurt," said I, "but scorn'd to yield." He smiled and said: "Alas! thou dost not see, My son, how great a flame's prepared for thee."

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

“Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores.”

I have to thank you...because you have so often helped me forget the evils of today.

Una gran quantità di libri è un fardello faticoso, e per l'anima una distrazione. Allo stesso tempo procura grande abbondanza di lavoro e mancanza di riposo. L'intelligenza si gira qua e là: la memoria è appesantita da una cosa e da un'altra... Credimi, questo non significa nutrire con gli scritti il proprio spirito, ma soffocarlo sotto il peso delle cose e seppellirlo: o forse torturare l'anima stordita da troppe cose come Tantalo in mezzo alle onde, che non può assaggiare niente e desidera ardentemente tutto.

My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. This sleep of forgetfulness will not last forever. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.

I stop, then, in my tracks, to recollect the awesome presence that I’ve left behind, the road ahead so long, my life so short, and bow my head and burst out into tears.

Sono posseduto da una passione inesauribile che finora non ho potuto né voluto frenare. Non riesco a saziarmi di libri. E sì che ne posseggo un numero superiore al necessario; (...) I libri ci danno un diletto che va in profondità, discorrono con noi, ci consigliano e si legano a noi con una sorta di famigliarità attiva e penetrante; e il singolo libro non insinua soltanto se stesso nel nostro animo, ma fa penetrare in noi anche i nomi di altri, e così l'uno fa venire il desiderio dell'altro

Gold,silver,gems, fine raiment , a marble palace, well-cultivated fields, paintings, a splendidly caparisoned horse such things as these give one nothing more than a mute and superficial pleasure. Books delight us through and through, they converse with us, they give us good advice; they become living and lively companions to us .

There cannot be a heart so hard that weeping,
praying and loving sometime will not move,
nor yet a will so cold it cannot burn.

"Al' iako ja sam stvor sazdan od zemlje, uporna mi čežnja potječe sa zvijezda." VII

I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already warning us that the time was near at hand when we must go. As if suddenly wakened from sleep, I turned about and gazed toward the west. I was unable to discern the summits of the Pyrenees, which form the barrier between France and Spain; not because of any intervening obstacle that I know of but owing simply to the insufficiency of our mortal vision

Having indeed seen so many things and considered so much, I have finally begun to understand how many are these desires with which the human species burns. Lest you consider me immune to all the sins of men, there is one implacable passion that holds me which so far I have been neither able nor willing to check, for I flatter myself that the desire for noble things is not dishonorable. Do you wish to hear the nature of this disease? I am unable to satisfy my thirst for books.

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.