Petrarch

"The desire to know is natural to good men."

"True friendship is a plant of slow growth."

"Wherever your life ends, it is all there."

"If little knowledge is dangerous, where is the one who has so much as to be out of danger?"

"We are dying from cimmerians of the mind."

"Praise prison, but live in the palace."

"The greatest wealth is a poverty of desires."

"One can hide the face but not the soul."

"Art, in itself, is not immoral, but the practice of art in a corrupt society is a corrupting practice."

"It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one."

"Better a little certainty than a great deal of conjecture."

"The more we know, the more we realize how little we know."

"Household affairs are not distinguished by importance, they are distinguished by frequency."

"Work is the curse of the thinking classes."

"Avarice is the most destructive of passions."

"Time devours all things."

"A man of wisdom makes his own decisions; an ignorant man follows public opinion."

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

"Rarely do great beauties join with great virtues."

"What is the first business of one who studies philosophy?"

"Eternity is in love with the creations of time."

"I myself have never been able to understand how spiritual truths can be denied."

"The man who is always ready to believe what is told him will never do well."

"Do nothing in haste, except catch fleas."

"War is the science of destruction."

"A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books."

"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."

"People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge."

"Existence precedes essence."

"Nothing is so improbable that oratory cannot make it acceptable."