People From Florence

"Le forze della penna sono troppo maggiori che coloro non estimano che quelle con conoscimento provato non hanno."

"Sempre non può l' uomo un cibo, ma talvolta desidera di variare."

"Per lo primo colpo non cade la quercia."

"Ogni giusto re primo servatore dee essere delle leggi fatte da lui."

"Normand R. Cartier, Boccaccio's Revenge: A Literary Transposition of the Corbaccio (The Old crow) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977)"

"Uno amore...a lieto fin pervenuto, in una novelletta assai piccola intendo di raccontarvi."

"Ci cacciano in cucina a dir delle favole colla gatta."

"Essere la natura de' motti cotale, che essi come la pecora morde deono cosi mordere l'uditore, e non come 'l cane: percio che, se come cane mordesse il motto, non sarebbe motto, ma villania."

"Se egli fu lieto assai, la letizia della giovane non fu minore."

"Chi mal ti vuol, mal ti sogna."

"Quale asino dà in parete cotale riceve."

"Amor, s’io posso uscir de’ tuoi artigli, appena creder posso che alcuno altro uncin mai piú mi pigli."

"E poco appresso levatasi la luna, e 'l tempo essendo chiarissimo, [egli] vegghiava."

"Nathaniel Griffin and Arthur Myrick, The Filostrato of Giovanni Boccaccio (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1929)"

"La gente è più acconcia a credere il male che il bene."

"Fate quello che noi diciamo e non quello che noi facciamo."

"Sola la miseria è senza invidia nelle cose presenti."

"Io ho inteso che un gallo basta assai bene a diece galline, ma che diece uomini posson male o con fatica una femina sodisfare."

"Le cose mal fatte e di gran tempo passate son più agevoli a riprendere che ad emendare."

"Bocca baciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnuova come fa la luna."

"Chi è reo e buono è tenuto Può fare il male e non è creduto."

"Lo ingannatore rimane a pié dello ingannato."

"It is annoying and impossible to suffer proud women, because in general Nature has given men proud and high spirits, while it has made women humble in character and submissive, more apt for delicate things than for ruling."

"Non come uomini, ma quasi come bestie, morieno."

"Natural ragione è di ciascuno che ci nasce, la sua vita, quanto può, aiutare e conservare e difendere."

"Come la copia delle cose genera fastidio, cosl l'esser le desiderate negate moltiplica l'appetito."

"Peccato celato e mezzo perdonato."

"Una boccuccia piccolina, le cui labbra parevan due rubinetti."

"La Notte, che tu vedi in sì dolci atti Dormir, fu da un angelo scolpita In questo sasso, e perchè dorme ha vita: Destala, se nol credi, e parleratti"

"The pope is a good-natured and extremely free-hearted man, who avoids every difficult situation and above all wants peace; he would not undertake a war himself unless forced into it by his advisors; he loves learning; of canon law and literature he possesses remarkable knowledge; he is, moreover, a very excellent musician."

"Sacra sub extrema, si forte requiritis, hora Cur Leo non potuit sumere: vendiderat."

"Leo X succeeded Julius II, and under his pontificate, Latin Christianity assumed a pagan, Greco-Roman character, which, passing from art into manners, gives to this epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment disappeared, to give place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in good taste, such as those indulged in by Alcibiades and sung by Catullus."

"With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected….We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication.... Moreover, because the preceding errors and many others are contained in the books or writings of Martin Luther, we likewise condemn, reprobate, and reject completely the books and all the writings and sermons of the said Martin, whether in Latin or any other language, containing the said errors or any one of them; and we wish them to be regarded as utterly condemned, reprobated, and rejected. We forbid each and every one of the faithful of either sex, in virtue of holy obedience and under the above penalties to be incurred automatically, to read, assert, preach, praise, print, publish, or defend them. They will incur these penalties if they presume to uphold them in any way, personally or through another or others, directly or indirectly, tacitly or explicitly, publicly or occultly, either in their own homes or in other public or private places."

"Therefore let Martin himself and all those adhering to him, and those who shelter and support him, through the merciful heart of our God and the sprinkling of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ by which and through whom the redemption of the human race and the upbuilding of holy mother Church was accomplished, know that from our heart we exhort and beseech that he cease to disturb the peace, unity, and truth of the Church for which the Savior prayed so earnestly to the Father. Let him abstain from his pernicious errors that he may come back to us. If they really will obey, and certify to us by legal documents that they have obeyed, they will find in us the affection of a father's love, the opening of the font of the effects of paternal charity, and opening of the font of mercy and clemency. We enjoin, however, on Martin that in the meantime he cease from all preaching or the office of preacher..."

"No one of sound mind is ignorant how destructive, pernicious, scandalous, and seductive to pious and simple minds these various errors are, how opposed they are to all charity and reverence for the holy Roman Church who is the mother of all the faithful and teacher of the faith; how destructive they are of the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline, namely obedience. This virtue is the font and origin of all virtues and without it anyone is readily convicted of being unfaithful. Therefore we, in this above enumeration, important as it is, wish to proceed with great care as is proper, and to cut off the advance of this plague and cancerous disease so it will not spread any further in the Lord's field as harmful thorn-bushes."

"Some, putting aside her true interpretation of Sacred Scripture, are blinded in mind by the father of lies. Wise in their own eyes, according to the ancient practice of heretics, they interpret these same Scriptures otherwise than the Holy Spirit demands, inspired only by their own sense of ambition, and for the sake of popular acclaim, as the Apostle declares. In fact, they twist and adulterate the Scriptures. As a result, according to Jerome, "It is no longer the Gospel of Christ, but a man's, or what is worse, the devil's." Let all this holy Church of God, I say, arise, and with the blessed apostles intercede with almighty God to purge the errors of His sheep, to banish all heresies from the lands of the faithful, and be pleased to maintain the peace and unity of His holy Church. For we can scarcely express, from distress and grief of mind, what has reached our ears for some time by the report of reliable men and general rumor; alas, we have even seen with our eyes and read the many diverse errors."

"In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:"

"Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth."

"It has served us well, this myth of Christ."

"Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it."

"Made thirty, we should make thirty-one"

"Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause. Remember your reproaches to those who are filled with foolishness all through the day. Listen to our prayers, for foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard whose winepress you alone have trod."

"Hospitals are only an intermediate stage of civilization, never intended at all even to take in the whole sick population."

"God has taken away the greatest man of his generation, for Dr. Livingstone stood alone."

"It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm. It is quite necessary, nevertheless, to lay down such a principle, because the actual mortality in hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality of the same class of diseases among patients treated out of hospital would lead us to expect. The knowledge of this fact first induced me to examine into the influence exercised by hospital construction on the duration and death-rate of cases received into the wards; and it led me to lay before the Social Science Association a paper reprinted with the present title. Since the publication of the first edition of that paper, great advances have been made in the adoption of sound principles of hospital construction; and there are already a number of examples of new hospitals realizing all, or nearly all, the conditions required for the successful treatment of the sick and maimed poor."

"Instead of wishing to see more doctors made by women joining what there are, I wish to see as few doctors, either male or female, as possible. For, mark you, the women have made no improvement — they have only tried to be men and they have only succeeded in being third-rate men."

"No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this — "devoted and obedient." This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman."

"I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet — all at the least expense of vital power to the patient."

"Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last."

"I agree as to the doubtful value of competitive examination. The qualities which you really want, viz., self-control, self-reliance, habits of accurate thought, integrity and what you generally call trustworthiness, are not decided by competitive examination, which test little else than the memory."