Pietro Aretino Quotes

A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart.

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

Angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such time takes flight and, in her absence; wrath plunders all the riches of the intellect, while the judgment remains the prisoner of its own pride.

Perugia is my true fatherland because there I grew to manhood.

Flee laziness which while it produces an immediate delight, ends in the sorrow of repentance. And know that nature without exercise is a seed shut up in the pod, and art without practice is nothing.

Nature without exercise is a seed shut up in a pod, and art without practice is nothing.

Flattery and deceit are the darlings of great men, and so with these men spread the butter on thick, if you want to get something out of them, otherwise you’ll come home to me with a full belly and an empty purse.

What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we!

I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

Why should I be ashamed to describe what nature was not ashamed to create?

Poetry is a whim of Nature in her lighter moods; it requires nothing but its own madness and, lacking that, it becomes a soundless cymbal, a belfry without a bell.

They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment.

Anger represents a certain power, when a great mind, prevented from executing its own generous desires, is moved by it.

Love doesn’t hide. It stays and fights. It goes the distance, that’s why love is so strong. So it can carry you all the way home.

A man who permits his honor to be taken, permits his life to be taken.