Pietro Aretino Quotes

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.

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.

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

Telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

Perfumed and gallant words make our ears belch.

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

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.

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

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.

If you want to annoy your neighbors, tell the truth about them.

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.

Life is a toy made of glass; it appears to be of inestimable price, but in reality it is very cheap.

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship.

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.

Desire is poison at lunch and wormwood at dinner; your bed is a stone, friendship is hateful and your fancy is always fixed on one thing.

There is no food more satiating than milk and honey; and just as such foods produce disgust for the palate, so perfumed and gallant words make our ears belch.

He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern! - holy, because no carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous, because of the spits, which themselves turn round and round!

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.

And there is quite a different sort of conversation around a fire than there is in the shadow of a beech tree.... Four dry logs have in them all the circumstance necessary to a conversation of four or five hours, with chestnuts on the plate and a jug of wine between the legs. Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

The art of war is like the art of the courtesan; indeed they might be called sisters, since both are slaves of desperation.

The best thing for a man to do is to be born and, being born, to die at once.

I am a free man. I do not need to copy Petrarca or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style, and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, I go to work and earn my living, my well-being and my fame.

Even when I'm railed at, I get my quota of renown.

We are the buffoons of our children.

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.

What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we! It seems to me that that which is given us by nature for our own preservation ought to be worn round the neck as a pendant and in the hat for a medal.

Age has a good mind and sorry shanks.

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

With a goose-quill and a few sheets of paper, I mock myself of the universe. They say I am the son of a courtesan; it may be so, but I have the heart of a King. I live free, I enjoy myself, I can call myself happy.

Why should the eyes be denied what delights them most?

Nothing, it appears to me, is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment; and the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of nature and the father of art.

Learning is the property of those who fear to do disagreeable things.

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

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