Petrarch Quotes

Petrarch shares thoughtful reflections on books, inner enemies, and life's mysteries, appealing to those who love philosophical wonder.

40 quotes

1. Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

2. Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest.

3. It is better to will the good than to know the truth.

4. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound, us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away- sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety.

5. Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

6. Who overrefines his argument brings himself to grief.

7. A good death does honor to a whole life.

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

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

10. 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?

11. 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.

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

13. How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!

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

15. Love is the crowning grace of humanity.

16. Man has no greater enemy than himself.

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

18. Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.

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

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. Who naught suspects is easily deceived.

23. He loves but lightly who his love can tell.

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

25. Events appear sad, pleasant, or painful, not because they are so in reality, but because we believe them to be so and the light in which we look at them depends upon our own judgment.

26. Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.

27. I had got this far, and was thinking of what to say next, and as my habit is, I was pricking the paper idly with my pen. And I thought how, between one dip of the pen and the next, time goes on, and I hurry, drive myself, and speed toward death. We are always dying. I while I write, you while you read, and others while they listen or stop their ears, they are all dying.

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

29. Where you are is of no moment, but only what you are doing there. It is not the place that ennobles you, but you the place, and this only by doing that which is great and noble.

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

31. If a hundred or a thousand people, all of the same age, of the same constitution and habits, were suddenly seized by the same illness, and one half of them were to place themselves under the care of doctors, such as they are in our time, whilst the other half entrusted themselves to Nature and to their own discretion, I have not the slightest doubt that there would be more cases of death amongst the former, and more cases of recovery among the latter.

32. In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair - my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did.

33. For style beyond the genius never dares.

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

35. Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.

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

37. Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.

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

39. The time will come when every change shall cease, This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace: No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze; Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past, But an eternal now shall ever last.

40. Wanting is not enough, long and you attain it.