On Love (Commentary on Plato's Symposium)

with our own [language] very comfortably provide for the necessities of our own tongue; assigning to every one of its most notable sounds its own character, or sign in such a manner that very few Tuscans, by chance, if they had not heard it before, would have noticed it: And even then, only on one side, they would certainly not have perceived it on all. Considering that I have not placed new characters there (as they say) or those not universally known by that same letter which they represent in all writings: But rather I have made use of the beautiful variety of our characters, already long used by the elegance of writers; making at one and the same time useful what was found only for beauty: And specifying that which, due to its unobserved variety, could rather bring difficulty and generate confusion.

If to imitate the ancients, in giving perfection to the sciences, and to every other human discovery: And to write no less modestly than usefully about those things which, by defect of method rather than by their own proper quality, have been blamed in the past: And to take from that of others for one's own needs: And finally to accommodate that of one's own, which was not useful before, or little so, should be held as little judgment: I am certainly one of those who is content with such charges.