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Quotes of Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD) was a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid who wrote on topics of love, abandoned women and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet. His poetry, much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, had a decisive influence on European art and literature for centuries. Ovid wrote in elegiac couplets, with two exceptions: his lost Medea, whose two fragments are in iambic trimeter and anapests, respectively, and Metamorphoses, which he wrote in dactylic hexameter, the meter of Virgil's Aeneid and of Homer's epics. Ovid offers an epic unlike those of his predecessors, a chronological account of the cosmos from creation to his own day, incorporating many myths and legends about supernatural transformations from the Greek and Roman traditions.
- A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace.
- A man is sorry to be honest for nothing.
- A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.
- A prince should be slow to punish, and quick to reward.
- Against the bold, daring is unsafe.
- Alas! how difficult it is not to betray one's guilt by one's looks.
- All love is vanquished by a succeeding love.
- All things can corrupt when minds are prone to evil.
- Although they posses enough, and more than enough still they yearn for more.
- An anthill increases by accumulation. Medicine is consumed by distribution. That which is feared lessens by association. This is the thing to understand.
- An evil life is a kind of death.
- Art lies by its own artifice.
- At times it is folly to hasten at other times, to delay. The wise do everything in its proper time.
- Bear and endure: This sorrow will one day prove to be for your good.
- Bear patiently with a rival.
- Beauty is a fragile gift.
- Blemishes are hid by night and every fault forgiven; darkness makes any woman fair.
- Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.
- Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.
- Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.
- Daring is not safe against daring men.
- Death is less bitter punishment than death's delay.
- Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it.
- Endure and persist, this pain will turn good by and by.
- Endure and persist; this pain will turn to good by and by.
- Enhance and intensify one's vision of that synthesis of truth and beauty which is the highest and deepest reality.
- Envy aims very high.
- Every lover is a soldier.
- Everyone wishes that the man whom he fears would perish.
- Everyone's a millionaire where promises are concerned.
- Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour.
- Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts.
- First appearance deceives many.
- First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, "I believe," three times.
- Fortune and love favor the brave.
- Frankly, I don't want to see a rapid upturn. I want it to hold until some of these idiotic competitors go bust.
- Give way to your opponent; thus will you gain the crown of victory.
- Habits change into character.
- Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.
- Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.
- He who can believe himself well, will be well.
- He who says o'er much I love not is in love.
- He who would not be idle, let him fall in love.
- He whom all hate all wish to see destroyed.
- How little is the promise of the child fulfilled in the man.
- I attempt an arduous task; but there is no worth in that which is not a difficult achievement.
- If any person wish to be idle, let them fall in love.
- If you want to be loved, be lovable.
- In an easy matter. Anybody can be eloquent.
- In our leisure we reveal what kind of people we are.
- It is annoying to be honest to no purpose.
- It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe there are.
- It is the poor man who'll ever count his flock.
- Jupiter from on high smiles at the perjuries of lovers.
- Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
- Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
- Let what is irksome become habitual, no more will it trouble you.
- Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.
- Like fragile ice anger passes away in time.
- Little things please little minds.
- Love and dignity cannot share the same abode.
- Love is a kind of warfare.
- Love is a thing that is full of cares and fears.
- Love is full of anxious fears.
- Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it there will be a fish.
- Majesty and love do not consort well together, nor do they dwell in the same place.
- Make the workmanship surpass the materials.
- Many women long for what eludes them, and like not what is offered them.
- Medicine sometimes snatches away health, sometimes gives it.
- Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.
- Minds that are ill at ease are agitated by both hope and fear.
- Most safely shall you tread the middle path.
- My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.
- Neglect of appearance becomes men.
- Neither can the wave that has passed by be recalled, nor the hour which has passed return again.
- No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.
- Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.
- Nothing is more powerful than custom or habit.
- Nowadays nothing but money counts: a fortune brings honors, friendships; the poor man everywhere lies low.
- Often they benefit who suffer wrong.
- People are slow to claim confidence in undertakings of magnitude.
- Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength.
- Take rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.
- Tears at times have the weight of speech.
- The bold adventurer succeeds the best.
- The burden which is well borne becomes light.
- The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.
- The gods behold all righteous actions.
- The good of other times let people state; I think it lucky I was born so late.
- The heavier crop is ever in others' fields.
- The high-spirited man may indeed die, but he will not stoop to meanness. Fire, though it may be quenched, will not become cool.
- The lamp burns bright when wick and oil are clean.
- The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.
- The penalty may be removed, the crime is eternal.
- The prayers of cowards fortune spurns.
- The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses.
- The spirited horse, which will try to win the race of its own accord, will run even faster if encouraged.
- The vulgar crowd values friends according to their usefulness.
- The will is commendable though the ability may be wanting.
- There is a god within us.
- There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled.
- There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.
- This also - that I live, I consider a gift of God.
- Those things that nature denied to human sight, she revealed to the eyes of the soul.
- Thou seest how sloth wastes the sluggish body, as water is corrupted unless it moves.
- Time is generally the best doctor.
- Time is the devourer of all things.
- Time, motion and wine cause sleep.
- Time, the devourer of all things.
- To feel our ills is one thing, but to cure them is another.
- Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
- Use the occasion, for it passes swiftly.
- Venus favors the bold.
- We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.
- What is deservedly suffered must be borne with calmness, but when the pain is unmerited, the grief is resistless.
- What is it that love does to a woman? Without she only sleeps; with it alone, she lives.
- What is now reason was formerly impulse or instinct.
- What is without periods of rest will not endure.
- What makes men indifferent to their wives is that they can see them when they please.
- Where belief is painful we are slow to believe.
- Whether they give or refuse, it delights women just the same to have been asked.
- Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish: I confess, that to my misfortune, it is soft.
- Why should I go into details, we have nothing that is not perishable except what our hearts and our intellects endows us with.
- You can learn from anyone even your enemy.
- You will go most safely in the middle.