Heptameron Quotes

For there’s nothing more foolish than a man who thinks he’s clever, and nothing more wise than the man who knows that he is nothing.

Is it better to speak or to die?

A handsome young knight is madly in love with a princess, and she too is in love with him, though she seems not to be entirely aware of it. Despite the friendship that blossoms between them, or perhaps because of that very friendship, the young knight finds himself so humbled and speechless that he is totally unable to bring up the subject of his love. Until one day he asks the princess point-blank: Is it better to speak or to die?

Is it better to speak or to die? —the Heptameron by Marguerite de Navarre

Nearly all of the stories [in The Heptameron] are about the sexual relations between men and women, with a large percentage dealing with the unromanic side: with rape, infidelity, the seduction of nuns and wives by monks (everyone in the Renaissance seems to have despised monks), loveless marriages, incest, and borderline necrophilia.