What women say to lovers, you'll agree, One writes on running water or on air.

I write of youth, of love, and have access by these to sing of cleanly wantonness.

I hate and love. You ask, perhaps, how can that be? I know not, but I feel the agony.

I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power.

It is difficult to suddenly give up a long love. Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem

For the godly poet must be chaste himself, but there is no need for his verses to be so.

Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.