Giovanni Boccaccio Quotes

To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others.

You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.

It's better to repent what you enjoyed than to repent not having enjoyed anything.

While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman.

People tend to believe the bad rather than the good.

In the affairs of this world, poverty alone is without envy.

Nothing is so indecent that it cannot be said to another person if the proper words are used to convey it.

In this world, you only get what you grab for.

Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy.

Although love dwells in gorgeous palaces, and sumptuous apartments, more willingly than in miserable and desolate cottages, it cannot be denied but that he sometimes causes his power to be felt in the gloomy recesses of forests, among the most bleak and rugged mountains, and in the dreary caves of a desert.

Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth.

My mind is wholly possessed by Love, who rules every part there of, in virtue of his all-embracing deity.

Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does.

Do as we say, and not as we do. [Lat., Faites ce que nous disons, et ne faites pas ce que nous faisons.]

No-thing less splendid than a golden sepulchre would have suited so noble a heart.

Much is required of those who are happy, especially if they have needed comforting in the past, and have received it.