John Florio

Giovanni Florio (1552 or 1553 – 1625), known as John Florio, was an English linguist, poet, writer, translator, lexicographer, and royal language tutor at the Court of James I. He is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England.

Quotes

• Since honour from the honourer proceeds,
    How well do they deserve that memorize
    And leave in Books, for all posterities
  The names of worthies and their virtuous deeds:
  When all their glory else, like water-weeds
    Without their element, presèntly dies,
    And all their greatness quite forgotten lies,
  And when and how they flourished no man heeds!
  How poor remembrances are statues, tombs,
    And other monuments that men erect
  To princes, which remain in closèd rooms
    Where but a few behold them, in respect
      Of Books, that to the universal eye
      Show how they lived; the other where they lie!
  • "Concerning the Honour of Books", as reported in The Book of Elizabethan Verse (1907)