Petrarch

"There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away - sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come."

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Source: Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters. Book edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 426, 1898.

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Petrarch

Petrarch

Poet, Scholar

Petrarch was a 14th-century Italian poet known for his sonnets and exploration of love, particularly through his seminal work 'Canzoniere'.

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Petrarch Poet, Scholar

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good."

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Petrarch Poet, Scholar

"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."

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Petrarch Poet, Scholar

"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."

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Petrarch Poet, Scholar

"Death is a sleep that ends our dreaming. Oh, that we may be allowed to wake before death wakes us."

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Petrarch Poet, Scholar

"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."

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