Petrarch Quotes
Francesco Petrarch was an Italian scholar, poet, and one of the founders of Renaissance humanism. His rediscovery of a lost cache of Cicero's letters at Verona helped to inaugurate the recovery of classical literature, and his Latin works Africa, On the Solitary Life, and the Secretum, an interior dialogue with Augustine, articulated a new vision of the examined human life. The quotes below are attributed to Petrarch, organized by topic.
Browse Petrarch by topic
Petrarch on God
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“Secretum Meum (1342), as translated in Petrarch's Secret : or, The Soul's Conflict with Passion : Three Dialogues Between Himself and St. Augustine (1911) edited by William Henry Draper”
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Petrarch on Happiness
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Attributed to Petrarch:
“There is a certain pleasure in weeping.”
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“Hitherto 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! When I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me, with trembling voice I made reply in Virgil 's words —”
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Petrarch on Knowledge
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“Books have led some to learning and others to madness.”
As quoted in "Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia" (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 75 -
Attributed to Petrarch:
“I am alone, and the more I think, the less I know.”
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“This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away the results of the vigils and labours of the most illustrious men of genius, things of more value, I am almost tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world.”
On the Scarcity of Copyists -
“On the Scarcity of Copyists”
This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away the results of the vigils and labours of the most illustrious men of genius, things of more value, I am almost tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world. -
“To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is visible from a great distance, was ever before my eyes, and I conceived the plan of some time doing what I have at last accomplished to-day.”
Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), "The Ascent of Mount Ventoux" in Familiar Letters as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898); the name Mount Ventosum relates to it being a windy mountain. -
“To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is ”
Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), "The Ascent of Mount Ventoux" in Familiar Letters as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898); the name Mount Ventosum relates to it being a windy mountain. -
“I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already war”
Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898) -
“My brother, waiting to hear something of St. Augustine 's from my lips, stood attentively by. I call him, and God too, to witness that where I first fixed my eyes it was written: "And 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."”
Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898) -
“De remediis utriusque fortunae (1354), Book II”
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
Petrarch on Life
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Attributed to Petrarch:
“Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceases to enlarge itself, till by broad spreading it disperses to nothing.”
Petrarch on Virtue
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“It is better to will the good than to know the truth.”
As quoted in The Renaissance : Essays in Interpretation (1982) by André Chastel , p 107 -
“Five enemies of peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride.”
De vita solitaria (1346) as quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 144 -
“Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.”
De remediis utriusque fortunae (1354), Book II