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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Age has a good mind and sorry shanks.

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

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.

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

We are the buffoons of our children.

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

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.

Why should the eyes be denied what delights them most?

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

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

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.

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.