104 Quotes by Petrarch

I feed my heart with sighs, that's all it asks, I live on tears, I think I'm born to weep;I don't complain of that, since in my stateweeping is sweeter than you might believe.

...never would I trade for some new shape that laurel I was first, in whose sweet shade all other pleasures vanish in my heart.

Your Homer is here with me; mute or rather in fact deaf am I, in front of him. But I am happy to gaze upon him and often hug him and, sighing, say, 'Great man, how I would love to hear you!

Go mortals, sweat, pant, toil, range the lands and seas to pile up riches you cannot keep; glory that will not last. The life we lead is a sleep; whatever we do, dreams. Only death breaks the sleep and wakes us from dreaming. I wish I could have woken before this.

Al' iako ja sam stvor sazdan od zemlje, uporna mi čežnja potječe sa zvijezda." VII

Gold, 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.

Yet have I oft been beaten in the field, And sometimes hurt," said I, "but scorn'd to yield." He smiled and said: "Alas! thou dost not see, My son, how great a flame's prepared for thee.

[He who can describe how his heart is ablaze is burning on a small pyre] ~ Petrarch, Sonnet 137(from Montaigne, On sadness)

She closed her eyes; and in the sweet slumber lyingher spirit tiptoed from its lodging place.It's folly to shrink in fear, if this is dying;for death looked lovely in her face.