PETRARCH

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

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

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

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.

How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!

Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.

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.

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

And tears are heard within the harp I touch.

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.

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.

Who naught suspects is easily deceived.

Man has no greater enemy than himself.

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.

Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

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

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

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

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?

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

Freedom of choice can harm no one.

It is hazardous to engage an enemy who longs rather for battle than for victory.

Just when you are most desirous of being deemed great, innumerable little things are sure to happen which not only reduce you to your true dimensions but bring you below them

I had heard of the Cyclopes, and then of the tyrants, both savage inhabitants; but of the coming of this third race of monsters, armed with two-edged arguments, and fiercer than the burning shores of Taormina itself, I was unaware.