Martial quotes:

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  • Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells? To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men.

  • I would not miss your face, your neck, your hands, your limbs, your bosom and certain other of your charms. Indeed, not to become boring by naming them all, I could do without you, Chloe, altogether.

  • You admire, Vacerra, only the poets of old and praise only those who are dead. Pardon me, I beseech you, Vacerra, if I think death too high a price to pay for your praise.

  • Short is the life of those who possess great accomplishments, and seldom do they reach a good old age. Whatever thou lovest, pray that thou mayest not set too high a value on it.

  • Rarity gives a charm; so early fruits and winter roses are the most prized; and coyness sets off an extravagant mistress, while the door always open tempts no suitor.

  • The swan murmurs sweet strains with a flattering tongue, itself the singer of its own dirge.

  • Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.

  • Wine and women bring misery.

  • Remember, cobbler, to keep to your leather. [Lat., Memento, in pellicula, cerdo, tenere tuo.]

  • There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.

  • The shameless Chloe placed on the tombs of her seven husbands the inscription, "The work of Chloe." How could she have expressed herself more plainly?

  • It is feeling and force of imagination that make us eloquent.

  • Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.

  • You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't say no.

  • It is as good as second life to be able to look back upon our past life with pleasure

  • A fisherman's walk: three steps and overboard.

  • He who thinks that the lives of Priam and of Nestor were long is much deceived and mistaken. Life consists not in living, but in enjoying health.

  • A vagrant is everywhere at home.

  • The virtuous man is never a novice in worldly things.

  • He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them?

  • If your slave commits a fault, do not smash his teeth with your fists; give him some of the (hard) biscuit which famous Rhodes has sent you.

  • A cook should double one sense have: for he Should taster for himself and master be.

  • I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged.

  • Your page stands against you and says to you that you are a thief.

  • If fame comes after death, I'm in no hurry for it. [Lat., Si post fata venit gloria non propero.]

  • You're obstinate, pliant, merry, morose, all at once. For me there's no living with you, or without you.

  • The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaeton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the bee itself would have desired such a death.

  • A novice always behaves with propriety.

  • If you have any shame, forbear to pluck the beard of a dead lion.

  • It is to live twice when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.

  • A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice.

  • A good man enlarges the term of his own existence.

  • A jar of wine so priceless did not deserve to die. and Never think of leaving perfume or wines to your heir. Administer these youself and let him have the money.

  • A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.

  • All your female friends are either old or ugly; nay, more ugly than old women usually are. These you lead about in your train, and drag with you to feasts, porticos and theaters. Thus, Fabulla, you seem handsome, thus you seem young.

  • An honest man is always a child. [Lat., Semper bonus homo tiro est.]

  • Be cheerful, if you are wise.

  • Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.

  • Be merry if you are wise.

  • Be not too thick with anybody; your joys will be fewer, and so will pains.

  • Be satisfied, and pleased with what thou art, Act cheerfully and well thou allotted part; Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past, And neither fear, nor wish, the approaches of the last.

  • Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear... But yours gives most; for mine did only lend Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.

  • Birdes of a feather will flocke togither.

  • Can the fish love the fisherman? [Lat., Piscatorem piscis amare potest?]

  • Do you ask what sort of a maid I desire or dislike, Flaccus? I dislike one too easy and one too coy. The just mean, which lies between the two extremes, is what I approve; I like neither that which tortures nor that which cloys.

  • Do you ask why I am unwilling to marry a rich wife? It is because I am unwilling to be taken to husband by my wife. The mistress of the house should be subordinate to her husband, for in no other way, Priscus, will the wife and husband be on an equality.

  • Epigrams need no crier, but are content with their own tongue.

  • Every bird that upwards swings Bears the Cross upon its wings.

  • Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have sting, honey, and brevity.

  • For life is only life when blessed with health.

  • For wealth's now given to none but to the rich.

  • Fortune gives many too much, but none enough.

  • From no place can you exclude the fates. [Lat., Nullo fata loco possis excludere.]

  • Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality, and benevolence; the other from pride or fear, or from the fact that you cannot take your money with you to the other world.

  • Genuine is the sorrow endured without anyone else knowing about it.

  • Gifts are like fish-hooks; for who is not aware that the greedy char is deceived by the fly which he swallows?

  • Gifts are like hooks.

  • Givers of great dinners know few enemies.

  • Glory comes too late when we are nought but ashes.

  • He who prefers to give Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half.

  • He who weighs his burdens, can bear them.

  • He writes nothing whose writings are not read.

  • However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish.

  • I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baiae; but now I luxuriously thrust for noble pickle.

  • I believe that man to be wretched whom none can please.

  • I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip; you may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half. Are you inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep this whole half entirely to yourself, Postumus.

  • I do not hate the man, but his vices.

  • I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name. [Lat., Nolo virum facili redimit qui sanquine famam; Hunc volo laudari qui sine morte potest.]

  • I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; I can only say this, "I do not love thee."

  • I have granted you much that you asked: and yet you never cease to ask of me. He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse.

  • I have not hated the man, but his faults.

  • I know all that better than my own name.

  • I wont let a wife lead me to the altar. [I will not have a wife that shall be my master.]

  • If fame is to come only after death, I am in no hurry for it.

  • If I remember right, Aelia, you had four teeth; a cough displaced two, another two more. You can now cough without anxiety all the day long. A third cough can find nothing to do in your mouth.

  • If my opinion is of any worth, the fieldfare is the greatest delicacy among birds, the hare among quadrupeds.

  • If pale beans bubble for you in a red earthenware pot, you can often decline the dinners of sumptuous hosts.

  • If you are poor now, Aemilianus, you will always be poor. Riches are now given to none but the rich.

  • If you want him to mourn, you had best leave him nothing.

  • In adversity it is easy to despise life; he is truly brave who can endure a wretched life. [Lat., Rebus in angustis facile est contemnere vitam; Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest.]

  • In adversity it is easy to despise life; he is truly brave who can endure a writeched life

  • It is easy in adversity to despise death; he has real fortitude who dares to live and be wretched.

  • It is folly to waste labour about trifles.

  • It is not he who forms idols in gold or marble that makes them gods, but he who kneels before them.

  • It is not, believe me, the act of a wise man to say, "I will live." To-morrow's life is too late; live to-day.

  • Joys do not stay, but take wing and fly away.

  • Laugh, if thou art wise.

  • Life consists not merely in existing, but in enjoying health.

  • Life is not living, but living in health.

  • Life's not just about being alive, but being well.

  • Live thy life as it were spoil and pluck the joys that fly.

  • Make it a point not to be over-fascinating.

  • Man loves malice, but not against one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud.

  • My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.

  • Neither fear your death's day nor long for it.

  • No amount of misfortune will satisfy the man who is not satisfied with reading a hundred epigrams.

  • No hero to me is the man who, by easy shedding of his blood, purchases fame: my hero is he who, without death, can win praise.

  • No man is quick enough to enjoy life.

  • Non est, crede mihi, sapientis dicere 'Vivam': Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie. Believe me, wise men don't say 'I shall live to do that', tomorrow's life is too late; live today. Variant translation: Tomorrow will I live, the fool does say; Today itself's too late; the wise lived yesterday.

  • Nothing is more ill-timed than an ill-timed laugh.

  • Of no day can the retrospect cause pain to a good man.

  • Our days pass by, and are scored against us.

  • Red-haired, black-lipped, club-footed, and blink-eyed; if you're a good man, you're a wonder!

  • See, how the liver is swollen larger than a fat goose! In amazement you will exclaim: Where could this possibly grow?

  • Service cannot be expected from a friend in service; let him be a freeman who wishes to be my master.

  • She grieves sincerely who grieves unseen.

  • Some are good, some are middling, the most are bad.

  • Some good, some so-so, and lots plain bad: that's how a book of poems is made, my Friend.

  • Spare the person but lash the vice.

  • Such are thou and I: but what I am thou canst not be; what thou art any one of the multitude may be.

  • That which prevents disagreeable flies from feeding on your repast, was once the proud tail of a splendid bird.

  • The African lions rush to attack bulls; they do not attack butterflies. [Lat., In tauros Libyci ruunt leones; Non sunt papilionibus molesti.]

  • The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved in amber, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar.

  • The face that cannot smile is never fair.

  • The flaw which is hidden is deemed greater than it is.

  • The present joys of life we doubly taste, By looking back with pleasure to the past.

  • The swifter hand doth the swift words outrun: Before the tongue hath spoke the hand hath done.

  • The world is blessed most by men who do things, and not by those who merely talk about them. -James Oliver 'Tomorrow I will live,' the fool does say; tomorrow itself is late; the wise live yesterday.

  • There is no glory in otustripping donkeys.

  • There is no glory in outstripping donkeys.

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