Shall we never have any respite? Must this pen always needs fight? Shall we never have a holiday? Must we respond every day to praises from our friends, every day make reply to the insults of envious rivals? Will no hiding-place ever protect us from jealousy, will no length of time extinguish envy? Shall I never find quiet repose by fleeing almost everything for which mankind strives and fervently exerts itself? Will my declining and wearied age not at last procure me a release?

Translated by Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller and John Herman Randall
The Renaissance Philosophy of Man

On his own Ignorance and that of Many Others I On his own Ignorance and that of Many Others II

Other Translations

On the death of Laura, written in a manuscript of Virgil Letter Criticizing the Avignon Papacy Letter to a Carthusian Monk