"[Statius] has as luxuriant an imagination as Lucan, but it is easy to see that he oftener checked it. You will find in his Thebaid innumerable beauties, but you will also see too many faults. You will see a fire and spirit equal to all that appeals in the Poets of the greatest name; but you will wish not only that it had been more limited, but that it had been better regulated: he has a great deal of natural dignity, but in carrying it too far he often spoils its lustre. His language is often elegant to a very great degree, and though not universally, yet in a very great part, is appropriated in a very happy manner. If there be one fault predominant above the others in the Thebaid, it is that he is too florid; but you will see that in this the fault was in the impetuosity of his fancy rather than in defect of judgment: his subject ran away with him, and he gave the reins to imagination. In his Sylvae we see him with all this false glare, natural, elegant, and easy. His Achilleid there is no pronouncing any thing upon, for it was never retouched. You will find in many parts of his Thebaid a great deal of the true sublime: in others he carries it into rant and bombast. In the Achilleid there is more of this in proportion than in the Thebaid; but we are not from thence to conclude that he grew worse in this respect as he continued his application: had he lived to finish, he would also have corrected that poem."

"Illic, precor, optime ductor, famulam tibi praecipe mentem, genitali in sede sacrari quam liquerat exsul et errans."

"Fervent bella horrida, fervent ossibus inclusa fremit et discordibus armis non simplex natura hominis."

"Corde natus ex parentis Ante mundi exordium A et O cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt. Saeculorum saeculis."

"Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum, gremioque hunc concipe molli. Hominis tibi membra sequestro, generosa et fragmina credo."

"Nexuque pio longinqua revinxit."

"Paupertas me saeva domat dirusque Cupido: sed toleranda fames, non tolerandus amor."

"In commune iubes si quid censesque tenendum, primus iussa subi: tunc observantior aequi fit populus nec ferre negat, cum viderit ipsum auctorem parere sibi. componitur orbis regis ad exemplum, nec sic inflectere sensus humanos edicta valent quam vita regentis. Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus."

"Iam non ad culmina rerum iniustos crevisse queror; tolluntur in altum ut lapsu graviore ruant."

"Vile latens virtus."

"Qui terret plus ipse timet."

"Natura beatis, omnibus esse dedit, si quis cognoverit uti."

"Minuit praesentia famam."

"Dis proximus ille est, quem ratio non ira movet."

"Peragit tranquilla potestas quod violenta nequit; mandataque fortius urget imperiosa quies."

"Omnia mors aequat."

"It is the things which Ausonius reveals unconsciously that win him liking, not those which he sets out to celebrate with a kind of innocent pomp: not the chair of rhetoric at twenty-five, nor the imperial tutorship in his fifties, nor the consulship at sixty-nine, but that he loved and taught rhetoric all his life, and kept his simplicity."

"Ausonius must be read to be believed! As poet, no subject is too trivial for him; as courtier, no flattery too excessive."

"Omne aevum curae; cunctis sua displicet aetas."

"Multis terribilis timeto multos."

"Collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus et nova pubes, et memor esto aevum sic properare tuum."

"Monumenta fatiscunt: mors etiam saxis nominibusque venit."

"Iniurium est de poeta male sobrio lectorem abstemium iudicare."

"Quis color ille vadis, seras cum propulit umbras Hesperus et viridi perfudit monte Mosellam! tota natant crispis iuga motibus et tremit absens pampinus et vitreis vindemia turget in undis."

"Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis legerit, hic sapiet. Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista somnia missa sibi."

"Errantes silva in magna et sub luce maligna inter harundineasque comas gravidumque papaver et tacitos sine labe lacus, sine murmure rivos, quorum per ripas nebuloso lumine marcent fleti, olim regum et puerorum nomina, flores."

"Tot species, tantosque ortus variosque novatus una dies aperit, conficit ipsa dies."

"The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age."

"In the history of versification did anyone ever juggle so wildly well with iambics, sapphics, dactylics, anapestics, and all the rest? He fabricated verses most ingeniously, most enthusiastically. His virtuosity is amazing. Almost every line he wrote was a tour de force. And in spite of all this highly self-conscious technical facility he managed occasionally to write poetry."

"She knows her man, and when you rant and swear, Can draw you to her with a single hair."

"Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere! nemo! Sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo."

"Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta."

"Tecum habita: noris quam sit tibi curta supellex."

"At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier "hic est"."

"Usque adeone scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter?"