Giovanni Rucellai

Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai (20 October 1475 – 3 April 1525) was an Italian writer and poet, and the grandson of the Rucellai family of wool-dyers turned bankers.

Quotes

L’Oreste

• La giusta impresa
  Sempre accompagna il valor delle stelle.
  • Act I (Oreste).
  • Translation: The valour of the stars
    Doth aye accompany the just emprise."
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 343.

• I sogni non son altro, che van’ ombre
  Immaginate dal pensier del giorno.
  • Act I (Olimpia).
  • Translation: Naught else but empty shadows are our dreams,
    Reflected from the day’s imaginings.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 421.

• (Che) chi non ama l’ossa non amava.
  • Act IV (Coro).
  • Translation: Who loveth not the dead, loved them not living.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 267.

• È ver quel che si dice
  Il ben e ’l mal comincia nolle fasce.
  • Act IV (Coro).
  • Translation: Truly the proverb says
    That in the cradle good and ill begin.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 366.

• Quest’ oltraggio è fatto ai Dei,
  I quai, se non han cura di se stessi,
  Non vi curate voi di vendicarli.
  • Act V (Coro).
  • Translation: This is an insult offered to the Gods,
    And if the Gods themselves make light of it.
    It is not in your hands that vengeance lies.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 403.

Le Api

• Ne’ piccioli suggetti è gran fatica,
  Ma qualunque gli esprime ornati, e chiari,
  Non picciol frutto del su’ ingegno coglie.
  • P. 39.
  • Translation: Great toil is oft by trifling theme entailed,
    But whoso clearly sets it forth and well,
    No trifling fruit he from his skill doth cull.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 365.

• La grand’ anima del Mondo
  Sta come auriga, e ’n questa cieca mole
  Infusa, muove le stellate sfere.
  • P. 678.
  • Translation: The world’s great soul
    Doth stand like charioteer, and this blind mass
    Pervading, doth control the starry spheres.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 343.