83 quotes
How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!
The International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970)
For style beyond the genius never dares.
Because life is short and my wit is afraid of the high undertaking, in neither do I have much confidence.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
My Pandolfo, those works are frail in the long run, but our study is the one that makes men immortal through fame.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
To noble minds profit should not appear to be a dignified reward for studies. It fits a craftsman to seek profit; generous arts know a nobler goal.
Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live.
An equal doom clipp'd Time's blest wings of peace.
Thyself no more deceive, thy youth hath fled.
I am she who gave you so much war and completed my day before evening.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
There is no heart so hard that by weeping, praying, loving, it may not at some time be moved, nor will so cold that it cannot be warmed.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
I shall be what I have been, shall live as I have lived.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
I know and love the good, yet ah! the worst pursue.
For death betimes is comfort, not dismay,
And who can rightly die needs no delay.
Hannibal was victorious, but he did not know later how to make good use of his victorious fortune.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing.
Full of a yearning thought that makes me stray away from all others.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
Your high beauty, which has no equal in the world, is painful to you except insofar as it seems to adorn and set off your lovely treasure of chastity.
Il Canzoniere (1351)
Behold who ever wept, and in his tears
Was happier far than others in their smiles.
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.
De vita solitaria (1346)
And so on earth
our destiny is with us from our birth.
Il Canzoniere (1351)