Petrarch's Quotes

True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.

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.

Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.

A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

To be able to say how much love, is love but little.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

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.

Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

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

And tears are heard within the harp I touch.

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

How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!

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

Man has no greater enemy than himself.

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

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

Who naught suspects is easily deceived.

Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?

To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds.