Explore Quotes by Petrarch

Man has no greater enemy than himself.

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.

Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonor to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage.

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.

Love is the crowning grace of humanity.

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