“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.”
Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio (28 April 1373) as quoted in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 426
Context: Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. 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. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety.
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Francesco Petrarca 73
Italian scholar and poet 1304–1374Related quotes
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Masi kāgada chūyo nahīṃ kalama gahī nahiṃ hātha ।
bhṛṃgadūta mahaँ saba kahyo eka jānakīnātha ॥
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book II, 14
Book 3, Chapter 5 “Five Heroes and a Heroine” (p. 467)
The Runestaff (1969)
“God is the same, even though He has a thousand names; it is up to us to select a name for Him.”
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“We will not be penned in even a giant's pen. We fly!”
Captain Roadstrum, Ch. 2
Space Chantey (1968)
Context: There are skies we have not seen yet! There are whole realms still unvisited by us. We will not be penned in even a giant's pen. We fly!
Le forze della penna sono troppo maggiori che coloro non estimano che quelle con conoscimento provato non hanno.
Eighth Day, Seventh Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 18 (p. 327)