Martial Quotes

Martial writes sharp, witty musings on friendship, love, and language.

27 quotes

1. Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.

2. Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.

3. Stop abusing my verses, or publish some of your own.

4. You complain, friend Swift, of the length of my epigrams, but you yourself write nothing. Yours are shorter.

5. Invitas nullum nisi cum quo, Cotta, lavaris et dant convivam balnea sola tibi mirabar quare numquam me, Cotta, vocasses: iam scio me nudum displicuisse tibi.

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

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

8. Nullos esse deos, inane caelum Adfirmat Segius: probatque, quod se Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum.

9. si post fata venit gloria, non propero.

10. Nobis pereunt et imputantur.

11. A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.

12. Laudas balnea versibus trecentis Cenantis bene Pontici, Sabelle. Vis cenare, Sabelle, non lavari.

13. Virtue extends our days: he lives two lives who relives his past with pleasure.

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

15. Difficilis facilis iucundus acerbus es idem: Nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te.

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

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

18. He writes nothing whose writings are not read.

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

20. 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.

21. A novice always behaves with propriety.

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

23. You should not fear, nor yet should you wish for your last day.

24. You crystal break, for fear of breaking it: Careless and careful hands like faults commit.

25. 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.

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

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