The Decameron Quotes

“Even in these circumstances, however, there were no tears or candles or mourners to honour the dead; in fact, no more respect was accorded to dead people than would nowadays be shown towards dead goats. For it was quite apparent that the one thing which, in normal times, no wise man had ever learned to accept with patient resignation (even though it struck so seldom and unobtrusively), had now been brought home to the feeble-minded as well, but the scale of the calamity caused them to regard it with indifference.”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“If a third of the stories in the Decameron mock religion, two-thirds celebrate sex.”
― Steven Moore, The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600