Quotes by Roman Authors - Page 13

The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.
Ovid
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Jerome
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
Seneca
To expel hunger and thirst there is no necessity of sitting in a palace and submitting to the supercilious brow and contumelious favour of the rich and great there is no necessity of sailing upon the deep or of following the camp What nature wants is every where to be found and attainable without much difficulty whereas require the sweat of the brow for these we are obliged to dress anew j compelled to grow old in the field and driven to foreign mores A sufficiency is always at hand
Seneca
But if you do not wish to die of thirst in the desert, drink charity. This is the fountain the Lord has willed to place here, lest we faint on the way, and we shall drink it more abundantly when we come to the Fatherland.
Augustine of Hippo
What greater evil could you wish a miser than long life?
Syrus Publilius
We are inflamed, by Thy Gift we are kindled; and are carried upwards; we glow inwardly, and go forwards. We ascend Thy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, and we go; because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem: for gladdened was I in those who said unto me, We will go up to the house of the Lord. There hath Thy good pleasure placed us, that we may desire nothing else, but to abide there for ever.
Augustine of Hippo
Now is the time to drink!
Horace
...certain people have good, ordinary blood and others have an animated, lively sort of blood that comes to the face quickly.
Seneca
There is nothing more shameful than perfidious friendship.
Marcus Aurelius
It is best not to be born or to die as soon as possible.
Pliny the Elder
You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.
Tertullian
There is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Augustine of Hippo
If you have two shirts in your closet, one belongs to you and the other to the man with no shirt.
Ambrose of Milan
Every lover is a soldier.
Ovid
And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name.
Seneca
Anything cracked will shatter at a touch.
Ovid
At last he was to feel that he had the town, as it were, in his pocket, and was ready for anything. Accordingly he sent a confidential messenger to Rome, to ask his father what step he should next take, his power in Gabii being, by God's grace, by this time absolute. Tarquin, I suppose, was not sure of the messenger's good faith: in any case, he said not a word in reply to his question, but with a thoughtful air went out to the garden. The man followed him, and Tarquin, strolling up and down in silence, began knocking off poppy-heads with his stick. The messenger at last wearied of putting his question and waiting for the reply, so he returned to Gabii supposing his mission to have failed. He told Sextus what he had said and what he had seen his father do: the king, he declared, whether from anger, or hatred, or natural arrogance, had not uttered a single word. Sextus realized that though his father had not spoken, he had, by his action, indirectly expressed his meaning clearly enough; so he proceeded at once to act upon his murderous instructions.
Livy
the dank night is sweeping down from the skyand the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.
Virgil
The signs of the old flame, I know them well.I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me downor the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades,the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night,before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.
Virgil
..and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the seaand what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl...
Virgil
He loved a lifeless thing and he was utterly and hopelessly wretched.
Ovid
...She nourishes the poison in her veins and is consumed by a secret fire.
Virgil
Swiftly the remembrance of all things is buried in the gulf of eternity.
Marcus Aurelius
That also which before was from the earth, passes back into the earth, and that which was sent from the borders of ether, is carried back and taken in again by the quarters of heaven. Death does not extinguish things in such a way as to destroy the bodies of matter, but only breaks up the union amongst them, and then joins anew the different elements with others; and thus it comes to pass that all things change their shapes and alter their colors and receive sensations and in a moment yield them up...
Titus Lucretius Carus
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Horace
Barley porridge, or a crust of barley bread, and water do not make a very cheerful diet, but nothing gives one keener pleasure than having the ability to derive pleasure even from that-- and the feeling of having arrived at something which one cannot be deprived of by any unjust stroke of fortune.
Seneca
Cling, therefore, to this sound and wholesome plan of life; indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health. ... Your food should appease your hunger, your drink quench your thirst, your clothing keep out the cold, your house be a protection against inclement weather. It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or variegated marble imported from another country: what you have to understand is that thatch makes a person just as good a roof as gold.
Seneca
Spurn everything that is added by way of decoration and display by unneccesary labour. Relect that nothing merits admiration except the spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything.
Seneca
Harmony makes small things grow. Lack of it makes big things decay.
Sallust
It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
Seneca
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.
Tacitus
Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none. Lat., Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli.]
Marcus Valerius Martialis
A lucky man is rarer than a white crow.
Juvenal
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Seneca
Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you.
Ovid
...it is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.
Seneca
In truth, Serenus, I have for a long time been silently asking myself to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I can find nothing that so closely approaches it as the state of those who, after being released from a long and serious illness, are sometimes touched with fits of fever and slight disorders, and, freed from the last traces of them, are nevertheless disquieted with mistrust, and, though now quite well, stretch out their wrist to a physician and complain unjustly of any trace of heat in their body. It is not, Serenus, that these are not quite well in body, but that they are not quite used to being well; just as even a tranquil sea will show some ripple, particularly when it has just subsided after a storm. What you need, therefore, is not any of those harsher measures which we have already left behind, the necessity of opposing yourself at this point, of being angry with yourself at that, of sternly urging yourself on at another, but that which comes last -confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and have not been led astray by the many cross- tracks of those who are roaming in every direction, some of whom are wandering very near the path itself. But what you desire is something great and supreme and very near to being a god - to be unshaken.
Seneca
Give me a scholar, therefore, who is able to think and to write, to look with an eye of discernment into things, and to do business himself, if called upon, who hath both civil and military knowledge; one, moreover, who has been in camps, and has seen armies in the field and out of it; knows the use of arms, and machines, and warlike engines of every kind; can tell what the front, and what the horn is, how the ranks are to be disposed, how the horse is to be directed, and from whence to advance or to retreat; one, in short, who does not stay at home and trust to the reports of others: but, above all, let him be of a noble and liberal mind; let him neither fear nor hope for anything; otherwise he will only resemble those unjust judges who determine from partiality or prejudice, and give sentence for hire: but, whatever the man is, as such let him be described.
Lucian of Samosata
Do not disagree with each other, enrich the soldiers, despise everyone else.
Lucius Septimus Severus
Idling of our elders is called business; the idling of boys, though quite like it, is punished by those same elders, and no one pities either the boys or the men.
Augustine of Hippo
Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
Marcus Aurelius
the gods are created by poets" --Ovid
Ovid
We Are Interested In Others When They Are Interested In Us
Publilius Syrus
I myself have seen this woman draw the stars from the sky; she diverts the course of a fast-flowing river with her incantations; her voice makes the earth gape, it lures the spirits from the tombs, send the bones tumbling from the dying pyre. At her behest, the sad clouds scatter; at her behest, snow falls from a summer's sky.
Tibullus
It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God. It is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy.
Cyprian
Those who wish their virtue to be advertised are not striving for virtue but for renown. Are you not willing to be just without being renowned? Nay, indeed you must often be just and be at the same time disgraced. And then, if you are wise, let ill repute, well won, be a delight. Farewell.
Seneca
Two distinctive traits especially identify beyond a doubt a strong and dominant character. One trait is contempt for external circumstances, when one is convinced that men ought to respect, to desire, and to pursue only what is moral and right, that men should be subject to nothing, not to another man, not to some disturbing passion, not to Fortune. The second trait, when your character has the disposition I outlined just now, is to perform the kind of services that are significant and most beneficial; but they should also be services that are a severe challenge, that are filled with ordeals, and that endanger not only your life but also the many comforts that make life attractive.Of these two traits, all the glory, magnificence, and the advantage, too, let us not forget, are in the second, while the drive and the discipline that make men great are in the former.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
The liberal arts do not conduct the soul all the way to virtue, but merely set it going in that direction.
Seneca
Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Faults are soon copied.
Horace
And they are ignorant that the purpose of the sword is to save every man from slavery.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Every day my conscience makes confession relying on the hope of Your mercy as more to be trusted than its own innocence.
Augustine of Hippo
There can be no centrein infinity.
Titus Lucretius Carus
You have truly gained the mastery of the very stronghold of philosophy, Mother. For without doubt only for lack of words you did not elaborate on this subject as did Tullius [Cicero], whose words will follow. For in the Hortensius, the book he wrote on the praise and defense of philosophy, he said: ‘But see, surely not the philosophers but all given to argument say that those who live just as they wish are happy.’ This is definitely false; for to want what is not appropriate is the worst of all miseries. It is not so miserable not to get what you want as to want to get what you ought not. Wickedness of will brings to everyone greater evil than good fortune brings good.
Augustine of Hippo
Lectio, quae placuit, decies repetita placebit.(What we read with pleasure we can read many times with pleasure.)
Horace
The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome.
Publilius Syrus
There is no man so blessed that some who stand by his deathbed won't hail the occasion with delight.
Marcus Aurelius
For in our hope we are saved.
Augustine of Hippo