Original text (Italian)
Gather the rose of love, while yet thou mayest,
Loving, be loved; embracing, be embraced.
Under whose feet, subjected to his grace,
Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place.
For in a world so mutable and blind
it's often constancy to change one's mind.
She fair, he full of bashfulness and truth,
Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Torquato Tasso (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.