There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away - sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come.
PetrarchGold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
PetrarchHitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal!
PetrarchIt is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
PetrarchLife in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.
PetrarchAnd men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.
PetrarchI rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.
PetrarchI 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.
PetrarchWhat 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
PetrarchFrom thought to thought, from mountain peak to mountain. Love leads me on; for I can never still My trouble on the world's well beaten ways.
PetrarchI freeze and burn, love is bitter and sweet, my sighs are tempests and my tears are floods, I am in ecstasy and agony, I am possessed by memories of her and I am in exile from myself.
PetrarchIn my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair - my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did.
PetrarchBooks can warm the heart with friendly words and counsel, entering into a close relationship with us which is articulate and alive
Petrarch