Aulus Persius Flaccus Quotes - Page 2

Check disease in its approach.

The man who wishes to bend me with his tale of woe must shed true tears - not tears that have been got ready overnight.

Let them (the wicked) see the beauty of virtue, and pine at having forsaken her. [Lat., Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.]

Each man has his fancy.

Confined to common life thy numbers flow, And neither soar too high nor sink too low; There strength and ease in graceful union meet, Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet; Yet powerful to abash the from of crime And crimson error's cheek with sportive rhyme. [Lat., Verba togae sequeris, junctura callidus acri, Ore teres modico, pallentes radere mores Doctus, et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.]

Lives there the man with soul so dead as to disown the wish to merit the people's applause, and having uttered words worthy to be kept in cedar oil to latest times, to leave behind him rhymes that dread neither herrings nor frankincense.

Retire within thyself, and thou will discover how small a stock is there. [Lat., Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.]

Quantum est in rebus inane! How much folly there is in human affairs.

That no one, no one at all, should try to search into himself! But the wallet of the person in front is carefully kept in view. [Lat., Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo! Sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo.]

Learn whom God has ordered you to be, and in what part of human affairs you have been placed.

You follow words of the toga (language of the cultivated class). [Lat., Verba togae sequeris.]

Is then thy knowledge of no value, unless another know that thou possessest that knowledge?

Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of invention. -Magister artis ingenique largitor Venter

O natal star, thou producest twins of widely different character. [Lat., Geminos, horoscope, varo Producis genio.]

Things fit only to give weight to smoke.