Francesco Petrarch Quotes

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

How do you know, poor fool? Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence'; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.

Blessed be the eyes that saw her while she lived!” 310

Time is our delight and our prison. It binds all human beings together, since we all share the pleasures and burdens of memory, and we all know the anticipation of cherished goals and the dark prospect of personal mortality.

I have friends whose society is delightful to me; they are persons of all countries and of all ages; distinguished in war, in council, and in letters; easy to live with, always at my command.

How much I envy you, you greedy earth, who get to clasp the one who’s taken from me, and keep me from the air of her sweet face in which I once found peace from all my war! How

So süß klingt allen Menschen das Wort Freiheit, dass selbst Keckheit und Frechheit überall Anklang finden, weil sie mit der Freiheit einige Ähnlichkeiten haben.

Laura, illustrious through her own virtues, and long famed through my verses, first appeared to my eyes in my youth, in the year of our Lord 1327, on the sixth day of April, in the church of St. Clare in Avignon, at matins; and in the same city, also on the sixth day of April, at the same first hour, but in the year 1348, the light of her life was withdrawn from the light of day, while I, as it chanced, was in Verona, unaware of my fate...

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

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. While

Now, what I am, and what I was, I know; I see the seasons in procession go With still increasing speed; while things to come, Unknown, unthought, amid the growing gloom Of long futurity, perplex my soul, While life is posting to its final goal. Mine is the crime, who ought with clearer light To watch the winged years’ incessant flight; And not to slumber on in dull delay

Arise, come, hasten, let us abandon the city to merchants, attorneys, brokers, usurers, tax-gatherers, scriveners, doctors, perfumers, butchers, cooks, bakers and tailors, alchemists, painters, mimes, dancers, lute-players, quacks, panderers, thieves, criminals, adulterers, parasites, foreigners, swindlers and jesters, gluttons who with scent alert catch the odor of the market place, for whom that is the only bliss, whose mouths are agape for that alone.

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.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. ~Charles W. Eliot Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. ~William Hazlitt The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television. ~Andrew Ross To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list. ~John Aikin Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance. ~ Lyndon B Johnson For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble. ~Francis Bacon "Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are" is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread. ~François Mauriac I have friends whose society is delightful to me; they are persons of all countries and of all ages; distinguished in war, in council, and in letters; easy to live with, always at my command. ~Francesco Petrarch To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. ~Edmund Burke There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; books are well written or badly written. ~Oscar Wilde

In 1309, he made the pivotal decision to move the Curia, or the papal administration, to Avignon, France, where the next 6 popes would reside until 1376. This ushered in what was dubbed the “Avignon Papacy,” but to others, this was the “Babylonian Captivity,” as christened by Italian writer Francesco Petrarch,