Quotes by Roman Authors - Page 17

A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.
Marcus Aurelius
The Beaver is an amphibious creature: by day it lives hidden in rivers, but at night it roams the land, feeding itself with anything that it can find. Now it understands the reason why hunters come after it with such eagerness and impetuosity, and it puts down its head and with its teeth cuts off its testicles and throws them in their path, as a prudent man who, falling into the hands of robbers, sacrifices all that he is carrying, to save his life, and forfeits his possessions by way of ransom. If however it has already saved its life by self-castration and is again pursued, then it stands up and reveals that it offers no ground for their eager pursuit, and releases the hunters from all further exertions, for they esteem its flesh less. Often however Beavers with testicles intact, after escaping as far away as possible, have drawn in the coveted part, and with great skill and ingenuity tricked their pursuers, pretending that they no longer possessed what they were keeping in concealment.
Aelian
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Man himself is a great deep, whose very hairs Thou numberest, O Lord, and they fall not to the ground without Thee. And yet are the hairs of his head easier to be numbered than his feelings, and the beatings of his heart.
Augustine of Hippo
Ira furor brevis est: animum rege: qui nisi paret imperat.(Anger is a brief madness: govern your mind [temper], for unless it obeys it commands.)
Horace
Anger is defined by philosophers as a long-standing and sometimes incurable mental ulcer, usually arising from weakness of intellect. In support of this they argue with some plausibility that this tendency occurs more in invalids than in the healthy, more in women than in men, more in the old than the young, more in those in trouble than in the prosperous.
Ammianus Marcellinus
It is not the actions of others which trouble us (for those actions are controlled by their governing part), but rather it is our own judgments. Therefore remove those judgments and resolve to let go of your anger, and it will already be gone. How do you let go? By realizing that such actions are not shameful to you.
Marcus Aurelius
Anger is a brief madness.
Horace
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
Marcus Aurelius
Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror
Horace
Certain portions of the earth, escaping utter destruction, become the seedbeds for replenishing the human race, and so it happens that on a world that is not young there are young populations having no culture, whose traditions were swept away in a debacle; they wander over the earth and gradually put aside the roughness of a nomadic existence and by natural inclunation submit to communities and associations; their mode of living is at first simple, knowking no guile and strange to cunning, called in its early stage the Golden Age. [16] The more these populations progress in civilization and employment of the arts, the more easily does the spirit of rivalry creep in, at first commendable but imperceptibly changing to envy; this, then, is responsible for all the tribulations that the race suffers in subsequent ages. So much for the vicissitudes that civilizations experience, of perishing and arising again, as the world goes on unchanged.[Chapter X - 15,16]
Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius
Every man is worth just so much as the things about which he busies himself.
Marcus Aurelius
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
Marcus Aurelius
No day shall erase you from the memory of time
Virgil
We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
[Philosophers] have come to envy the philologist and the mathematician, and they have taken over all the inessential elements in those studies—with the result that they know more about devoting care and attention to their speech than about devoting such attention to their lives.
Seneca
Arrive before your Husband. Not that I canSee quite what good arriving first will do;But still arrive before him. When he's takenHis place upon the couch and you go tooTo sit beside him, on your best behaviorStealthily touch my foot, and look at me,Watching my nods, my eyes, my face's language;Catch and return my signals secretly.I'll send a wordless message with my eyebrows;You'll read my fingers' words, words traced in wine.When you recall our games of love together,Your finger on rosy cheeks must trace a line.If in your silent thoughts you wish to chide me,Let your hand hold the lobe of your soft ear;When, darling, what I do or say gives pleasure,Keep turning to an fro the ring you wear.When you wish well-earned curses on your husband,Lay your hand on the table, as in prayer.If he pours you wine, watch out, tell him to drink it;Ask for what you want from the waiter there.I shall take next the glass you hand the waiterAnd I'll drink from the place you took your sips;If he should offer anything he's tasted,Refuse whatever food has touch his lips.Don't let him plant his arms upon your shoulders,Don't let him rest your gentle head on his hard chest,Don't let your dress, your breasts, admit his fingers,And--most of all--no kisses to be pressed!You kiss--and I'll reveal myself your lover;I'll say 'they're mine'; my legal claim I'll stake.All this, of course I'll see, But what's well hiddenunder your dress--blind terror makes me quake.
Ovid
Journeying over many seas & through many countries I came dear brother to this pitiful leave-taking The last gestures by your gravesideThe futility of words over your quiet ashes.Life cleft us from each other Pointlessly depriving brother of brotherAccept then, our parents' customThese offerings, this leave-takingEchoing forever, brother, through a brother's tears
Catullus
I have lost you, my brotherAnd your death has ended The spring seasonOf my happiness, our house is buried with youAnd buried the laughter that you taught me.There are no thoughts of love nor of poemsIn my head Since you died.
Catullus
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.(Pluck the day [for it is ripe], trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.)
Horace
And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand.
Augustine of Hippo
You should always be ready to apply these two rules of action, the first, to do nothing other than what the kingly and law-making art ordains for the benefits of humankind, and, the second, to be prepared to change your mind if someone is at hand to put you right and guide you away from some groundless opinion.
Marcus Aurelius
Hence, you see your faith, you see your doubt, you see your desire and will to learn, and when you are induced by divine authority to believe what you do not see, you see at one that you believe these things; you analyze and discern all this.
Augustine of Hippo
Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor illis.(In this place I am a barbarian, because men do not understand me.)
Ovid
I know that these mental disturbances of mine are not dangerous and give no promise of a storm; to express what I complain of in apt metaphor, I am distressed, not by a tempest, but by sea-sickness.
Seneca
It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.
Marcus Aurelius
The good man is free, even if he is a slave. The evil man is a slave, even if he is a king.
Augustine of Hippo
In this universe, even what is called evil, when it is rightly ordered and kept in its place, commends the good more eminently, since good things yield greater pleasure and praise when compared to the bad things. For the Omnipotent God, whom even the heathen acknowledge as the Supreme Power over all, would not allow any evil in his works, unless in his omnipotence and goodness, as the Supreme Good, he is able to bring forth good out of evil. What, after all, is anything we call evil except the privation of good? In animal bodies, for instance, sickness and wounds are nothing but the privation of health. When a cure is effected, the evils which were present (i.e., the sickness and the wounds) do not retreat and go elsewhere. Rather, they simply do not exist any more. For such evil is not a substance; the wound or the disease is a defect of the bodily substance which, as a substance, is good. Evil, then, is an accident, i.e., a privation of that good which is called health. Thus, whatever defects there are in a soul are privations of a natural good. When a cure takes place, they are not transferred elsewhere but, since they are no longer present in the state of health, they no longer exist at all.
Augustine of Hippo
Thus, every entity, even if it is a defective one, in so far as it is an entity, is good. In so far as it is defective, it is evil.
Augustine of Hippo
All of nature, therefore, is good, since the Creator of all nature is supremely good. But nature is not supremely and immutably good as is the Creator of it. Thus the good in created things can be diminished and augmented. For good to be diminished is evil; still, however much it is diminished, something must remain of its original nature as long as it exists at all. For no matter what kind or however insignificant a thing may be, the good which is its 'nature' cannot be destroyed without the thing itself being destroyed. There is good reason, therefore, to praise an uncorrupted thing, and if it were indeed an incorruptible thing which could not be destroyed, it would doubtless be all the more worthy of praise. When, however, a thing is corrupted, its corruption is an evil because it is, by just so much, a privation of the good. Where there is no privation of the good, there is no evil. Where there is evil, there is a corresponding diminution of the good. As long, then, as a thing is being corrupted, there is good in it of which it is being deprived; and in this process, if something of its being remains that cannot be further corrupted, this will then be an incorruptible entity [natura incorruptibilis], and to this great good it will have come through the process of corruption. But even if the corruption is not arrested, it still does not cease having some good of which it cannot be further deprived. If, however, the corruption comes to be total and entire, there is no good left either, because it is no longer an entity at all. Wherefore corruption cannot consume the good without also consuming the thing itself. Every actual entity [natura] is therefore good; a greater good if it cannot be corrupted, a lesser good if it can be. Yet only the foolish and unknowing can deny that it is still good even when corrupted. Whenever a thing is consumed by corruption, not even the corruption remains, for it is nothing in itself, having no subsistent being in which to exist.
Augustine of Hippo
If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy
Boethius
And so sovereign Providence has often produced a remarkable effect--evil men making other evil men good. For some, when they think they suffer injustice at the hands of the worst of men, burn with hatred for evil men, and being eager to be different from those they hate, have reformed and become virtuous. It is only the power of God to which evils may also be good, when by their proper use He elicits some good result.
Boethius
Fate would have no divinity if we were wise: it is we who make her a goddess and place her in heaven.
Juvenal
For Fate/ The willing leads, the unwilling drags along.
Seneca
SOSTRATUS: Observe then your injustice! You punish us who are but the slaves of Clotho's bidding, and reward these, who do but minister to another's beneficence. For it will never be said that it was in our power to gainsay the irresistible ordinances of Fate?MINOS: Ah, Sostratus; look closely enough, and you will find plenty of inconsistencies besides these. However, I see you are no common pirate, but a philosopher in your way; so much you have gained by your questions. Let him go, Hermes; he shall not be punished after that. But mind, Sostratus, you must not put it into other people's heads to ask questions of this kind.
Lucian of Samosata
Fate is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.
Publilius Syrus
For dismissed by You from Paradise, and having taken my journey into a far country, I cannot by myself return, unless Thou meetest the wanderer: for my return has throughout the whole tract of this world's time waited for Your mercy.
Augustine of Hippo
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.
Augustine of Hippo
It is not that we keep His commandments first and that then He loves but that He loves us and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace which is revealed to the humble but hidden from the proud.
Augustine of Hippo
Poverty fled, she who gives birth to virile men.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.
Pliny the Elder
No one heals himself by wounding another.
Ambrose of Milan
Moreover, you can’t stand so much as an hour of your own companyor spend your leisure properly; you avoid yourself like a truantor fugitive, hoping by drink or sleep to elude Angst.But it’s no good, for that dark companion stays on your heels
Horace
Saepa stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint scripturas. (Turn the stylus [to erase] often if you would write something worthy of being reread.)
Horace
Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis.(Whatever advice you give, be brief.)
Horace
What need of prompt or hint when it is open to yourself to discern what needs to be done - and, if you can see your way, to follow it with kind but undeviating intent. If you cannot see the way, hold back and consult your best advisors. if some other factors obstruct this advice, proceed on your present resources, but with cautious deliberations, keeping always to what seems just. Justice is the best aim, as any failure is in fact a failure of justice.A man following reason in all things combines relaxation with initiative, spark with composure.
Marcus Aurelius
Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all.
Seneca
What a woman tells her lover in desireshould be written out on air & running water.
Catullus
Nothing is left of meEach time I see her
Catullus
However much you possess there's someone else who has more, and you'll be fancying yourself to be short of things you need to exact extent to which you lag behind him.
Seneca
The poor lack much, the greedy everything.
Publilius Syrus
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Seneca
I cannot find a faithful message-bearer," he wrote to his friend, the scholar Atticus. "How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.
Marcus Aurelius
Woman, the child of so many tears shall never perish.
Ambrose of Milan
God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Augustine of Hippo
There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
Seneca
Early impressions are hard to eradicate from the mind. When once wool has been dyed purple, who can restore it to its previous whiteness?
Jerome
All things fade into the storied past, and in a little while are shrouded in oblivion.
Marcus Aurelius