Quotes by Roman Authors - Page 16

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .
Marcus Aurelius
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Marcus Aurelius
What should you, O man, do, you who seek your own glory whenever you do anything good, while when you do something bad, you figure out ways to blame God.
Augustine of Hippo
There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility
Marcus Aurelius
Humility raises us not by human arrogance but by divine grace.
Augustine of Hippo
The pride which is proud of want of pride is the most intolerable of all.
Marcus Aurelius
He was not utterly unskilled in handling his own lack of training, and he refused to be rashly drawn into a controversy about those matters from which there would be no exit nor easy way of retreat. This was an additional ground for my pleasure. For the controlled modesty of a mind that admits limitations is more beautiful than the things I was anxious to know about.
Augustine of Hippo
It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.
Publilius Syrus
Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit - There is no book so bad that it is not profitable on some part.
Pliny the Younger
...a man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith ... to those who try to defame our Holy Scripture. ... when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture ... either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. ...let us choose [the doctrine] which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the author. ... For it is one thing to fail to recognize the primary meaning of the writer, and another to depart from the norms of religious belief.
Augustine of Hippo
The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
Augustine of Hippo
I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.
Augustine of Hippo
Her clear conscience mocked rumour’s mendacity, But we are a mob prone to credit sin.
Ovid
What Saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it?
Jerome
There is no sin unless through a man's own will, and hence the reward when we do right things also of our own
Augustine of Hippo
I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance – You oh God – towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter.
Augustine of Hippo
He that becomes protector of sin shall surely become its prisoner.
Augustine of Hippo
Sin is looking for the right thing in the wrong place.
Augustine of Hippo
Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.
Marcus Aurelius
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Is any man skillful enough to have fashioned himself?
Augustine of Hippo
When consent takes the form of seeking to possess the things we wish, this is called desire. When consent takes the form of enjoying the things we wish, this is called joy.
Augustine of Hippo
When you are disturbed by events and lose your serenity, quickly return to yourself and don't stay upset longer than the experience lasts; for you'll have more mastery over your inner harmony by continually returning to it.
Marcus Aurelius
The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance. The mind commands the hand to move, and it so easy that one hardly distinguishes the order from its execution. Yet mind is mind and hand is body. The mind orders the mind to will. The recipient of the order is itself, yet it does not perform it.
Augustine of Hippo
Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above the rest of creation so long as he realizes his own nature, and when he forgets it, he sinks lower than the beasts. For other living things to be ignorant of themselves, is natural; but for man it is a defect.
Boethius
There could be nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that by the mercy of God they who are endowed with true piety of life if they have the skill for ruling people should also have the power.
Augustine of Hippo
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Tacitus
A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.
Marcus Aurelius
The road is long if one proceeds by way of precepts but short and effectual if by way of personal example.
Seneca
Maximus was my model for self-control, fixity of purpose, and cheerfulness under ill-health or other misfortunes. His character was an admirable combination of dignity and charm, and all the duties of his station were performed quietly and without fuss. He gave everyone the conviction that he spoke as he believed, and acted as he judged right. Bewilderment or timidity were unknown to him; he was never hasty, never dilatory; nothing found him at a loss. He indulged neither in despondency nor forced gaiety, nor had anger or jealousy any power over him. Kindliness, sympathy, and sincerity all contributed to give the impression of a rectitude that was innate rather than inculcated. Nobody was ever made by him to feel inferior, yet none could have presumed to challenge his pre-eminence. He was also the possessor of an agreeable sense of humour.
Marcus Aurelius
Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do. Have done with those unsettled pleasures, which cost one dear - they do one harm after they're past and gone, not merely when they're in prospect. Even when they're over, pleasures of a depraved nature are apt to carry feelings of dissatisfaction, in the same way as a criminal's anxiety doesn't end with the commission of the crime, even if it's undetected at the time. Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don't do one any harm, they're fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light.
Seneca
If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.
Marcus Aurelius
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Seneca
Ah, merciless Love, is there any length to which you cannot force the human heart to go?
Virgil
Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?' You would be ashamed to confess it! And then remind yourself that it is not the future or what has passed that afflicts you, but always the present, and the power of this is much diminished if you take it in isolation and call your mind to task if it thinks that it cannot stand up to it when taken on its own.
Marcus Aurelius
Live every day as if they last.
Marcus Aurelius
Never let the future disturb you - you will meet it with the same weapons of reason and mind that, today, guard you against the present...
Marcus Aurelius
And besides, we lovers fear everything
Ovid
The universe is flux, life is opinion.
Marcus Aurelius
Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.
Seneca
Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.
Augustine of Hippo
The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.
Augustine of Hippo
The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.
Augustine of Hippo
How good it is, when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of a fish, this the dead body of a bird or pig.
Marcus Aurelius
There is also a tradition about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour of the evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
First, however, I must deal with the matter of Jesus, the so-called savior, who not long ago taught new doctrines and was thought to be a son of God. This savior, I shall attempt to show, deceived many and caused them to accept a form of belief harmful to the well-being of mankind. Taking its root in the lower classes, the religion continues to spread among the vulgar: nay, one can even say it spreads because of its vulgarity and the illiteracy of its adherents. And while there are a few moderate, reasonable, and intelligent people who interpret its beliefs allegorically, yet it thrives in its purer form among the ignorant.
Celsus
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
Marcus Aurelius
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Viewed from a distance, everything is beautiful.
Tacitus
Will any man despise me? Let him see to it. But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that deserves to be despised.
Marcus Aurelius
Nothing is more scandalous than a man that is proud of his humility.
Marcus Aurelius
A wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens.
Augustine of Hippo
A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation.
Marcus Aurelius
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
Marcus Aurelius
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio. des fieri sentio et excrucior.I hate and I love. You may ask, why I do this. I do not know. But I sense that I do and it pains me.
Catullus
But your own tears blind you to mine.I am not neglectful of friendship,but we two squat in the same coracle,we are both swamped by the same stormy waters,I have not the gifts of a happy man. . . Often enough.
Catullus
Our thoughts is what our life make it
Marcus Aurelius
That all is as thinking makes it so – and you control your thinking. So remove your judgements whenever you wish and then there is calm - as the sailor rounding the cape finds smooth water and the welcome of a waveless bay.
Marcus Aurelius