Francesco Petrarca: Quotes about love

Francesco Petrarca was Italian scholar and poet. Explore interesting quotes on love.

Francesco Petrarca: 146 quotes7 likes

“Song, if you find a man at peace with love,
say: 'Die while you're happy,
since early death is no grief, but a refuge:
and he who can die well, should not delay.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzon, s'uom trovi in suo amor viver queto, di': Muor' mentre se' lieto, ché morte al tempo è non duol, ma refugio; et chi ben pò morir, non cerchi indugio. Canzone 331, st. 6 ( tr. A. S. Kline http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=331) Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“I freeze and burn, love is bitter and sweet, my sighs are tempests and my tears are floods, I am in ecstasy and agony, I am possessed by memories of her and I am in exile from myself.”

Francesco Petrarca

Source: Canzoniere: Selected Poems

“She closed her eyes; and in the sweet slumber lying
her spirit tiptoed from its lodging place.
It's folly to shrink in fear, if this is dying;
for death looked lovely in her face.”

Francesco Petrarca

“The waters speak of love and the breeze and the branches and the little birds and the fish and the flowers and the grass, all together begging me always to love. But you, born in a happy hour, who call me from Heaven: by the memory of your untimely death you beg me to scorn the world and its sweet hooks.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzone 280, st. 3–4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“If it is not love, what then is it that I feel? But if it is love, before God, what kind of thing is it? If it is good, whence comes this bitter mortal effect? If it is evil, why is each torment so sweet?”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento?
Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale?
Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale?
Se ria, onde sí dolce ogni tormento?
Canzone 132, st. 1
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“One falls in love through fame.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzone 53, st. 8
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“There is no heart so hard that by weeping, praying, loving, it may not at some time be moved, nor will so cold that it cannot be warmed.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Non è sí duro cor che, lagrimando,
pregando, amando, talor non si smova,
né sí freddo voler, che non si scalde.
Canzone 265, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“The proverb "Love him who loves you" is an ancient fact.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Proverbio "ama chi t'ama" è fatto antico.
Canzone 105, st. 3
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“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.”

Francesco Petrarca

As quoted in Notable Thoughts About Women : A Literary Mosaic (1882) by Maturin Murray Ballou, p. 311

“Your high beauty, which has no equal in the world, is painful to you except insofar as it seems to adorn and set off your lovely treasure of chastity.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

L'alta beltà ch'al mondo non à pare
noia t'è, se non quanto il bel thesoro
di castità par ch'ella adorni et fregi.
Canzone 263, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“For your lovely eyes, Lady, bound me.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Ché i be' vostr'occhi, donna, mi legaro.
Canzone 3, line 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life
Variant: [From] two lovely eyes that have bound me.

“To be able to say how much you love is to love but little.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

"Canzone 137", as reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1968), p. 163
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“But still I cannot seek paths so harsh or so savage that Love does not always come along discoursing with me and I with him.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Ma pur sí aspre vie né sí selvagge
cercar non so ch'Amor non venga sempre
ragionando con meco, et io co llui.
Canzone 35, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

“Love governs his empire without a sword.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Amor regge suo imperio senza spada.
Canzone 105, st. 1
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life