Pietro Aretino Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

A man who permits his honor to be taken, permits his life to be taken.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Perfumed and gallant words make our ears belch.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Age has a good mind and sorry shanks.

They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment.

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.

We are the buffoons of our children.

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

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

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.