“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, quote from The Decameron
“Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from 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, quote from The Decameron
“La giovane, che non era di ferro né di diamante, assai agevolmente si piegò ai piaceri dello abate.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“No-thing less splendid than a golden sepulchre would have suited so noble a heart.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from 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, quote from The Decameron
“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, quote from The Decameron
“Mejor estaría con diablos: de siete veces seis no saben lo que ellas mismas quieren.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“Ir taisnība (lai arī kāds tam būtu iemesls, vai nu mūsu tikumu izviršana, vai sevišķa nelabvēlība, ar kādu uz mūsu gadsimtu raugās debesis), ka šodien ir palicis pavisam maz vai nav nemaz tādu sieviešu, kas īstajā brīdī prastu kaut ko pateikt vai spētu saprast, kā nākas, ja viņām ko saka, un tas ir liels kauns mums visām.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from The Decameron
“Let this grisly beginning be none other to you than is to wayfarers a rugged and steep mountain.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“Fiammetta, whose wavy tresses fell in a flood of gold over her white and delicate shoulders”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“<...> в Берлинцоне, в стране басков, в области, называемой Живи-лакомо, где виноградные лозы подвязывают сосисками, гусь идет за копейку, да еще с гусенком впридачу; есть там гора вся из тертого пармезана, на которой живут люди и ничем другим не занимаются, как только готовят макароны и клецки, варят их в отваре из каплунов и бросают вниз; кто больше поймает, у того больше и бывает; а поблизости течет поток из Верначчьо, лучшего вина еще никто не пивал, и нет в нем ни капли воды.("Декамерон", Дж. Бокаччо)”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“Oni su se udruživali i, izdvojeni od ostalih, živeli povučenim i usamljenim životom, koga su uredili s najvećom pažnjom... Mučno je sećati se kako je građanin izbegavao građanina, kako se među susedima jedva ko nalazio da prema drugome pokaže saosećanje, i kako se razdvojeni srodnici nikad ne sretahu. Ucveljenost je tako duboko prodrla u ljudske duše da je u tom užasu brat napuštao brata, a žena muža, dok očevi i majke, kao da su stranci, nezbrinutom ostavljahu decu njihovoj sudbini... Na vrhuncu zlopaćenja i ispaštanja našeg grada, ranjivi autoritet ljudskog i božanskog zakona beše zloupotrebljavan i gotovo se sasvim raspao, jer oni koji su trebali da ga primenjuju i sami behu mrtvi ili bolesni. Stoga je svaki čovek bio slobodan da čini što je u sopstvenim očima nalazio da je pravo...”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“la gratitud, según lo creo, es entre las demás virtudes sumamente de alabar y su contraria de maldecir,”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
“I have lost my pains, which meseemed I had right well bestowed, thinking to have converted this man; for that, an he go to the court of Rome and see the lewd and wicked life of the clergy, not only will he never become a Christian, but, were he already a Christian, he would infallibly turn Jew again.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, quote from The Decameron
Giovanni Boccaccio
Born place: Certaldo, Italy
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“Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men. . . . Repeat, and cradle the pieces carefully, or events will scatter like marbles on a wooden floor.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies
“We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, quote from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
“Diary entry, summer 1973. It may be there in a distracted glance out of an open window or in the split second of an absent look when you speak to her, or in the guarded inflections of her voice as she replies, or in the subtle chemistry of touch or smell or the taste of her skin in your mouth, or in some unspecified sixth sense that you can’t name, but when love is over, its signals are louder than disclosure, if only you are willing and open enough to acknowledge them. But of course we shake off these feelings as if they were mere irritations, as if they were unimportant and uninvited guests at a feast. “Not now,” you say, fobbing them off with shallow excuses and feigning more urgent business elsewhere. But they linger long after the party, and skulk in a corner where they plot and fester and return to ask their impertinent questions in the still of night, when she’s sleeping and wearing her child’s face. When she looks so beautiful and vulnerable with her mouth slightly open, and her hair a mess on the pillow, but as you reach to touch her, she turns unconsciously away toward the window, and then the questions start again, and you can’t sleep….”
― Sting, quote from Broken Music
“It's astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain.”
― Carl Sagan, quote from Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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Rich Dad's Guide to...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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