Giovanni Boccaccio > Quotes

“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.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“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. ”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“Nothing is so indecent that it cannot be said to another person if the proper words are used to convey it.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“In this world, you only get what you grab for.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“Do as we say, and not as we do”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“Wrongs committed in the distant past are far easier to condemn than to rectify.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“it is obvious that all vices have a grievous effect on those who indulge them and often on others too. But I believe that the one which can transport us with the most unbridled haste into danger is anger. This is nothing other than a sudden thoughtless impulse, provoked by some perceived offence, which banishes reason and clouds the eyes of the mind, rousing the soul to blazing fury.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron

“„Често човек си мисли, че е далече от щастието, а то с тихи стъпки вече е дошло до него.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“In the affairs of this world, poverty alone is without envy.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio

“The scholar, as wise as he was full of wrath, knowing that threats only serve as weapons to the person so threatened, kept all his resentment within his own breast [...]”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“Let this grisly beginning be none other to you than is to wayfarers a rugged and steep mountain.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“And the plague gathered strength as it was transmitted from the sick to the healthy through normal intercourse, just as fire catches on to any dry or greasy object placed too close to it. Nor did it stop there: not only did the healthy incur the disease and with it the prevailing mortality by talking to or keeping company with the sick--they had only to touch the clothing or anything else that had come into contact with or been used by the sick and the plague evidently was passed to the one who handled those things.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“No-thing less splendid than a golden sepulchre would have suited so noble a heart.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“Senseless creatures, you don't see how much evil is concealed under a little good appearance.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“La giovane, che non era di ferro né di diamante, assai agevolmente si piegò ai piaceri dello abate.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“Umana cosa è l'aver compassione agli afflitti; e come che a ciascuna persona stea bene, a coloro è massimamente richiesto li quali già hanno di conforto avuto mestiere, e hannol trovato in alcuni: fra' quali, se alcuno mai n'ebbe bisogno, o gli fu caro, o già ne ricevette piacere, io son uno di quegli.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“Whenever they are reproached for such actions and for the many other disgraceful things they do, they think they can unload the heaviest charges by replying, ‘Do as we say and not as we do’—as if constancy and steadfast behavior came more easily to the sheep than to their shepherds.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“Of women he was as fond as dogs of the stick; but in the contrary he delighted more than any filthy fellow alive.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, THE DECAMERON:

“Mejor estaría con diablos: de siete veces seis no saben lo que ellas mismas quieren.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, El Decamerón

“here be said save that even in poor cottages there rain down divine spirits from heaven, like as in princely palaces there be those who were worthier to tend swine than to have lordship over men?”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron and Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio (Illustrated)

“since the beginning of the world men have been and will be, until the end thereof, bandied about by various shifts of fortune,”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, THE DECAMERON:

“They brought it to a common saying there that the most acceptable service one could render to God was to put the devil in Hell”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“So long she held on in this mourning manner, that, what by the
continuall watering of the Basile, and putrifaction of the head, so
buried in the pot of earth; it grew very flourishing, and most
odorifferous to such as scented it, that as no other Basile could
possibly yeeld so sweete a savour.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“it was his custom to live for three days of the week on bread and water, and he had drunk this water with as much pleasure and as greedily (particularly when he was tired after praying or going on pilgrimage)”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron

“richer, by far in coin than in wit,”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, THE DECAMERON:

“Alack!’ rejoined the other, ‘what is this thou sayest? Knowest thou not that we have promised our virginity to God?’ ‘Oh, as for that,’ answered the first, ‘how many things are promised Him all day long, whereof not one is fulfilled unto Him! An we have promised it Him, let Him find Himself another or others to perform it to Him.’ ‘Or if,’ went on her fellow, ‘we should prove with child, how would it go then?’ Quoth the other, ‘Thou beginnest to take thought unto ill ere it cometh; when that betideth, then will we look to it; there will be a thousand ways for us of doing so that it shall never be known, provided we ourselves tell it not.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron