C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Ovid
A broken fortune is like a falling column; the lower it sinks, the greater weight it has to sustain.
A field becomes exhausted by constant tillage.
A pious fraud.
A spirit superior to every weapon.
Agreeing to differ.
Alas! how difficult it is to prevent the countenance from betraying guilt.
All human things hang on a slender thread: the strongest fall with a sudden crash.
All things can corrupt perverse minds.
An evil life is one kind of death.
And now have I finished a work which neither the wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor steel, nor all-consuming time can destroy. Welcome the day which can destroy only my physical man in ending my uncertain life. In my better part I shall be raised to immortality above the lofty stars, and my name shall never die.
Any one can be rich in promises.
As long as you are fortunate you will have many friends, but if the times become cloudy you will be alone.
As the mind of each man is conscious of good or evil, so does he conceive within his breast hope or fear, according to his actions.
As the yellow gold is tried in fire, so the faith of friendship must be seen in adversity.
Beauty is a frail good.
Believe me, the gods spare the afflicted, and do not always oppress those who are unfortunate.
Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.
Chance is always powerful; let your hook always be cast. In a pool where you least expect it there will be a fish.
Chastity, once lost, cannot be recalled; it goes only once.
Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.
Deadly poisons are often concealed under sweet honey.
Death is not grievous to me, for I shall lay aside my pains by death.
Despotic conscience rules our hopes and fears.
Devouring Time and envious Age, all things yield to you; and with lingering death you destroy, step by step, with venomed tooth whatever you attack.
Dignity and love do not blend well, nor do they continue long together.
Diseases of the mind impair the bodily powers.
Envy assails the noblest; the winds howl around the highest peaks.
Envy feeds only on the living.
Even pleasure cloys without variety.
Every delay that postpones our joys is long.
Every one wishes that the man whom he fears would perish.
Excessive love in loathing ever ends.
Fortune and Love befriend the bold.
Giving requires good sense.
God gave man an upright countenance to survey the heavens, and to look upward to the stars.
Have patience and endure; this unhappiness will one day be beneficial.
He who has it in his power to commit sin, is less inclined to do so. The very idea of being able, weakens the desire.
He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well.
Heaven makes sport of human affairs and the present hour gives no sure promise of the next.
I see the right, and I approve it too; condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.
If God be appeased, I cannot be wretched.
If Jupiter hurled his thunderbolt as often as men sinned, he would soon be out of thunderbolts.
If thou wishest to put an end to love, attend to business (love yields to employment); then thou wilt be safe.
If you count the sunny and the cloudy days of the whole year, you will find that the sunshine predominates.
In an easy cause any man may be eloquent.
In war the olive branch of peace is of use.
It is a pleasure appropriate to man for him to save a fellow-man, and gratitude is acquired in no better way.
It is lawful to be taught by an enemy.
It is prudence that first forsakes the wretched.
It is some relief to weep; grief is satisfied and carried off by tears.
Like fragile ice anger passes away in time.
Love is a thing full of anxious fears.
Love is an affair of credulity.
Luck affects everything; let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it, there will be a fish.
Man should ever look to his last day, and no one should be called happy before his funeral.
May you live unenvied, and pass many pleasant years unknown to fame; and also have congenial friends.
Meet the disorder in the outset, the medicine may be too late, when the disease has gained ground through delay.
Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.
Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God.
Nothing is stronger than habit.
O ye gods! what thick encircling darkness blinds the minds of men!
Ossa on Pelion.
Pursuits become habits.
Remove but the temptations of leisure, and the bow of Cupid will lose its effect.
Resist beginnings: it is too late to employ medicine when the evil has grown strong by inveterate habit.
She half consents who silently denies.
Sickness seizes the body from bad ventilation.
Simplicity is a jewel rarely found.
Skilled in every trick, a worthy heir of his paternal craft, he would make black look white, and white look black.
Sleep, thou repose of all things; sleep, thou gentlest of the deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies; who doest soothe the hearts of men wearied with the toils of the day, and refittest them for labor.
Some report elsewhere whatever is told them; the measure of fiction always increases, and each fresh narrator adds something to what he has heard.
Stones are hollowed out by the constant dropping of water.
Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
Tears are sometimes as weighty as words.
Thanks are justly due for things got without purchase.
That tuneful nymph, the babbling Echo.
That you may be beloved, be amiable.
The brave find a home in every land.
The burden becomes light which is cheerfully borne.
The cause is hidden, but the result is known.
The deeds of men never escape the gods.
The dove, O hawk, that has once been wounded by thy talons, is frightened by the least movement of a wing.
The gift derives its value from the rank of the giver.
The glow of inspiration warms us; this holy rapture springs from the seeds of the Divine mind sown in man.
The gods see the deeds of the righteous.
The love of country is more powerful than reason itself.
The love of fame gives an immense stimulus.
The man who falls in love will find plenty of occupation.
The mind alone can not be exiled.
The mind conscious of innocence despises false reports; but we are always ready to believe a scandal.
The most wretched fortune is safe; for there is no fear of anything worse.
The poet’s labors are a work of joy, and require peace of mind.
The sick mind can not bear anything harsh.
The silent countenance often speaks.
The ungovernable passion for wealth.
The vulgar herd estimate friendship by its advantages.
The wild boar is often held by a small dog.
The wounded gladiator forswears all fighting, but soon forgetting his former wound resumes his arms.
The wounded limb shrinks even from the gentlest touch, and to the nervous the smallest shadow excites alarm.
There are persons always standing ready to believe a scandal.
There is a certain pleasure in weeping; grief finds in tears both a satisfaction and a cure.
There is a divinity within our breast.
There is a god within us, and we have intercourse with heaven. That spirit comes from abodes on high.
There is no excellence uncoupled with difficulties.
There is no need of words; believe facts.
There is no small pleasure in pure water.
There is no such thing as pure, unalloyed pleasure; some bitter ever mingles with the sweet.
There is nothing in the world that remains unchanged. All things are in perpetual flux, and every shadow is seen to move.
Those gifts are ever the most acceptable which the giver makes precious.
Thou beginnest better than thou endest. The last is inferior to the first.
Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest.
Thou seest how sloth wastes the sluggish body, as water is corrupted unless it moves.
Time is generally the best doctor.
Time spent in the cultivation of the fields passes very pleasantly.
Time steals on and escapes us, like the swift river that glides on with rapid stream.
Time that devours all things.
’Tis you, alone, can save, or give my doom.
To be instructed in the arts softens the manners and makes men gentle.
To be loved, be lovable.
To be silent is but a small virtue; but it is a serious fault to reveal secrets.
To be thoroughly imbued with the liberal arts refines the manners, and makes men to be mild and gentle in their conduct.
To wish for death is a coward’s part.
To wish is of little account; to succeed you must earnestly desire; and this desire must shorten thy sleep.
We are always striving for things forbidden, and coveting those denied us.
We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
We must improve our time; time goes with rapid foot.
What ignorance there is in human minds.
What is deservedly suffered must be borne with calmness, but when the pain is unmerited, the grief is resistless.
What is more useful than fire? Yet if any one prepares to burn a house, it is with fire that he arms his daring hands.
What is reason now was passion heretofore.
When time has assuaged the wounds of the mind, he who unseasonably reminds us of them, opens them afresh.
Wherever I look there is nothing but the image of death.
Whilst you are prosperous you can number many friends; but when the storm comes you are left alone.
Winged time glides on insensibly, and deceive us; and there is nothing more fleeting than years.
Yield to him who opposes you; by yielding you conquer.
You will hardly conquer, but conquer you must.