Quotes from Pietro Aretino

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.

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

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

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

Age has a good mind and sorry shanks.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.