Giovanni Boccaccio quotes

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, and humanist, widely celebrated as one of the founders of Renaissance literature. His most famous work, "The Decameron," is a collection of novellas that had a profound influence on European storytelling. He enriched the Italian language and inspired countless authors with his vivid characters and innovative narrative style. Here are 30 of his quotes:

People tend to believe the bad rather than the good.

Giovanni Boccaccio

While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy.

Giovanni Boccaccio

In the affairs of this world, poverty alone is without envy.

Giovanni Boccaccio

A kissed mouth doesn't lose its freshness, for like the moon it always renews itself.

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

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

Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Wrongs committed in the distant past are far easier to condemn than to rectify.

Giovanni Boccaccio

A just king must be the first to observe those laws that he has himself prescribed.

Giovanni Boccaccio

A sweet little mouth with lips like rubies.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Charming ladies, the beauty of a flock of white doves is better enhanced by a black crow than by a pure white swan.

Giovanni Boccaccio

They banish us to the kitchen, there to tell stories to the cat.

Giovanni Boccaccio

The nature of wit is such that its bite must be like that of a sheep rather than a dog, for if it were to bite the listener like a dog, it would no longer be wit but abuse.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Who means ill, dreams ill.

Giovanni Boccaccio

The deceived has the better of the deceiver.

Giovanni Boccaccio

An oak is not felled by a single blow of the axe.

Giovanni Boccaccio

A sin that's hidden is half forgiven.

Giovanni Boccaccio

He who is wicked and held to be good, can cheat because no one imagines he would.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Shortly afterwards the moon rose with a very clear sky, and [he] kept watch.

Giovanni Boccaccio

The power of the pen is far greater than those people suppose who have not proved it by experience.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Every person born into this world has a natural right to sustain, preserve, and defend his own life to the best of his ability.

Giovanni Boccaccio