Quotes by Roman Authors - Page 5

He who cannot do what he wants must make do with what he can.
Terence
If you aspire to the highest place it is no disgrace to stop at the second or even the third place.
Cicero
We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.
Horace
Vex not thy spirit at the course of things they heed not thy vexation. How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment at anything that may happen in life.
Marcus Aurelius
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
Juvenal
Many individuals have like uncut diamonds shining qualities beneath a rough exterior.
Juvenal
In quarreling the truth is always lost.
Syrus
It is not every question that deserves an answer.
Syrus
I shall always consider the best guesser the best prophet.
Cicero
Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger.
Saint Basil
We should lay up in peace what we shall need in war.
Syrus
Do what you can and pray for what you cannot yet do.
Saint Augustine
The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience the next for health of mind and then of body.
Seneca
We should pray for a sane mind in a sound body.
Juvenal
He who has great power should use it lightly.
Seneca
Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions.
Tacitus
He who sows courtesy reaps friendship and he who plants kindness gathers love.
Saint Basil
If we live good lives the times are also good. As we are such are the times.
Saint Augustine
A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.
Cicero
They can because they think they can.
Virgil
The mere apprehension of a coming evil has put many into a situation of the utmost danger.
Lucan
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts ... take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
Marcus Aurelius
A man's life is what his thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
A gentleman is mindful no less of the freedom of others than of his own dignity.
Livy
The man is either mad or he is making verses.
Horace
Poets have a license to lie.
Pliny the Younger
Poetry is the Devil's wine.
St. Augustine
Let your poem be kept nine years.
Horace
A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.
Publilius Syrus
It is the function of perfection to make one know one's imperfection.
Saint Augustine
His only fault is that he has no fault.
Pliny
I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.
Cicero
Peace is the first thing the angels sang. Peace is the mark of the sons of God. Peace is the nurse of love. Peace is the mother of unity. Peace is the rest of blessed souls. Peace is the dwelling place of eternity.
Leo the Great
Where they make a desert they call it peace.
Tacitus
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.
Marcus Aurelius
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Marcus Aurelius
Hasten slowly.
Augustus Caesar
There is nothing so bitter that a patient mind cannot find some solace for it.
Seneca
A picture is a poem without words.
Horace
The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body.
Syrus
Fear betrays unworthy souls.
Virgil
If you wish to fear nothing consider that everything is to be feared.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
I never admired another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.
Cicero
Success is not greedy as people think but insignificant. That's why it satisfies nobody.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
Pale death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Horace
In Rome you long for the country. In the country you praise to the skies the distant town.
Horace
No one is content with his own lot.
Horace
Every stage of life has its troubles and no man is content with his own age.
Ausonius
None of us is ever satisfied with what we are.
Terence
Luck affects everything. Let your hook be always cast. In the stream where you least expect it there will be a fish.
Ovid
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
Sallust
The opportunity is often lost by deliberating.
Publilius Syrus
So many men so many opinions.
Terence
Time is a stream which glides smoothly on and is past before we know.
Ovid
Time is a sort of river of passing events and strong is its current no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place and this too will be swept away.
Marcus Aurelius
Time is the devourer of all things.
Ovid
What then is time? If no one asks me I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks I do not know.
Saint Augustine
Nothing is more powerful than habit.
Ovid