Quotes by Roman Authors - Page 3

At the age of nineteen [44 BC] on my own responsibility and at my own expense I raised an army, with which I successfully championed the liberty of the republic when it was oppressed by the tyranny of a faction.
Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus
The deformity of Christ forms you. If he had not willed to be deformed, you would not have recovered the form which you had lost. Therefore he was deformed when he hung on the cross. But his deformity is our comeliness. In this life, therefore, let us hold fast to the deformed Christ.
Augustine of Hippo
Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry.
Vitruvius Pollio
A community is nothing else than a harmonious collection of individuals.
Augustine of Hippo
We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learned to bear its ills without being overcome by them.
Juvenal
I am a human being, so nothing human is strange to me.
Terence
If you are surprised at the number of our maladies count our cooks.
Seneca
Death twitches my ear;'Live,' he says... 'I'm coming.
Virgil
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
I am not a ‘wise man,’ nor . . . shall I ever be. And so require not from me that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked. It is enough for me if every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes.
Seneca
He is much to be dreaded who stands in dread of poverty.
Publilius Syrus
Believe me if you consult philosophy she will persuade you not to lit so long at your counting desk
Seneca
forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.and perhaps it will be pleasing to have remembered these things one day
Virgil
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
Luxury is more deadly than any foe.
Juvenal
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
So long, in fact, as you remain in ignorance of what to aim at and what to avoid, what is essential and what is superfluous, what is upright or honorable conduct and what is not, it will not be travelling but drifting. All this hurrying from place to place won’t bring you any relief, for you’re travelling in the company of your own emotions, followed by your troubles all the way.
Seneca
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.
Marcus Aurelius
To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.
Cicero
Love the sinner and hate the sin.
Augustine of Hippo
When it happens that I am more moved by the song than the thing which is sung, I confess that I sin in a manner deserving punishment
Augustine of Hippo
Harmony makes small things grow. Lack of it makes big things decay.
Sallust
For the nearer everything is unto unpassionateness, the nearer it is unto power. And as grief doth proceed from weakness, so doth anger. For both, both he that is angry and grieveth, have received a wound, and cowardly have as it were yielded themselves unto their affections... For it was ordained unto holiness and godliness, which specially consist in an humble submission to God and His providence in all things; as well as unto justice: these also being part of those duties, which as naturally sociable, we are bound unto; and with without which we cannot happily converse one with another: yea and the very ground and fountain indeed of all just actions.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
One who's our friend is fond of us one who's fond of us isn't necessarily our friend.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
He who is shipwrecked twice is foolish to blame the sea.
Publilius Syrus
On Epicurus; He says: "Contended poverty is an honourable estate." Indeed, if it is contented, it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca
The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
Seneca
The strictest justice is sometimes the greatest injustice.
Terence
They can because they think they can.
Virgil
Make haste slowly.
Augustus
...certain people have good, ordinary blood and others have an animated, lively sort of blood that comes to the face quickly.
Seneca
There can be no centrein infinity.
Titus Lucretius Carus
In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.
Ovid
What mancan you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he isdying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed,Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.
Seneca
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
Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.
Seneca
Get good counsel before you begin: and when you have decided act promptly.
Sallust
O temporal O mores! O what times! what morals!
Cicero
Anger is a brief madness.
Horace
Your own property is concerned when your neighbor's house is on fire.
Horace
The best mask for demoralization is daring.
Lucan
For in our hope we are saved.
Augustine of Hippo
Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
By-and-by never comes.
Saint Augustine
We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
No one presumes to teach an art that he has not first mastered through study. How foolish therefore for the inexperienced to assume pastoral authority when the care of souls is the art of arts.
St. Gregory Dialogos
The seeds of life - fiery is their force, divine their birth, but they are weighed down by the bodies' ills or dulled by limbs and flesh that's born for death. That is the source of all men's fears and longings, joys and sorrows, nor can they see the heaven's light, shut up in the body's tomb, a prison dark and deep.
Virgil
The road is long if one proceeds by way of precepts but short and effectual if by way of personal example.
Seneca
I regret often that I have spoken never that I have been silent.
Syrus
But are they heroes or mere dreamers?
Gaius Valerius Flaccus
Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.
Marcus Aurelius
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Greater things are believed of those who are absent.
Tacitus
I never admired another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.
Cicero
Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams.
Marcus Aurelius
To confess a fault freely is the next thing to being innocent of it.
Syrus
It's the old headpiece that makes a man, the rest is all rubbish.
Petronius Arbiter
In love there are two evils: war and peace.
Horace
As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.
Marcus Aurelius
...we can endure neither our vices nor the remedies needed to cure them.
Livy