Petrarch

Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.

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.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

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.

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.

I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth.

Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

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

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

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.

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

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

I freeze and burn, love is bitter and sweet, my sighs are tempests and my tears are floods, I am in ecstasy and agony, I am possessed by memories of her and I am in exile from myself.

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.

Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,_x000D_ _x000D_ Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,_x000D_ _x000D_ In some dread moment, by the fates assign'd,_x000D_ _x000D_ Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;_x000D_ _x000D_ And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last_x000D_ _x000D_ The speed that spins the future and the past:_x000D_ _x000D_ And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,_x000D_ _x000D_ Awful eternity shall reign alone.

The time will come when every change shall cease,_x000D_ _x000D_ This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace:_x000D_ _x000D_ No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze;_x000D_ _x000D_ Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past,_x000D_ _x000D_ But an eternal now shall ever last.