Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism". In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages." (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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A good death does honor to a whole life.
Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest.
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.
How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.
How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!
I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.
I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.
It is better to will the good than to know the truth.
It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
Man has no greater enemy than himself.
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
Suspicion is the cancer of friendship.
The aged love what is practical while impetuous youth longs only for what is dazzling.
There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.
There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.
To be able to say how much you love is to love but little.
Who naught suspects is easily deceived.
Who overrefines his argument brings himself to grief.
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(July 20 is also the birthday of Frantz Fanon.)
Categories: Petrarch, Quotes of the day
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