"Barbarian hordes en masse you fuck, Odd types into your bed you tuck, You take on blacks and Asian forces, And Jews, and soldiers, and their horses. Yet you, voracious Roman chick, Have never known a Roman dick."

"Laudant illa sed ista legunt."

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

"The bee enclosed and through the amber shown Seems buried in the juice which was his own."

"Simpliciter pateat vitium fortasse pusillum: Quod tegitur, magnum creditur esse malum"

"Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux: Sit nox cum somno: sit sine lite dies."

"Semper eris pauper, si pauper es, Aemiliane; Dantur opes nulli nunc, nisi divitibus."

"Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli."

"Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum."

"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."

"I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee."

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

"Cineri gloria sera venit."

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

"Ride, si sapis."

"Non est, crede mihi, sapientis dicere ‘Vivam’: Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie."

"Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba."

"I have now gone through the first seven books of Martial, and have learned about 360 of the best lines. His merit seems to me to lie, not in wit, but in the rapid succession of vivid images. I wish he were less nauseous. ... Besides his indecency, his servility and his mendicancy disgust me."

"Audio Valerium Martialem decessisse et moleste fero. Erat homo ingeniosus acutus acer, et qui plurimum in scribendo et salis haberet et fellis nec candoris minus. ... At non erunt aeterna, quae scripsit; non erunt fortasse, ille tamen scripsit, tamquam essent futura."

"He who refuses nothing...will soon have nothing to refuse."

"Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis; Nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus."

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

"And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?"

"The greatest of epigrammatists, and the father of the epigram as we understand it."

"Let words proceed as they please, provided only your soul keeps its own sure order, provided your soul is great and holds unruffled to its ideals, pleased with itself on account of the very things which displease others, a soul that makes life the test of its progress, and believes that its knowledge is in exact proportion to its freedom from desire and its freedom from fear."

"They have been spoken by Plato, spoken by Zeno, spoken by Chrysippus or by Posidonius, and by a whole host of Stoics as numerous as excellent. I shall show you how men can prove their words to be their own: it is by doing what they have been talking about."

"Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis."

"It is to this law that our souls must adjust themselves, this they should follow, this they should obey. Whatever happens, assume that it was bound to happen, and do not be willing to rail at Nature. That which you cannot reform, it is best to endure, and to attend uncomplainingly upon the God under whose guidance everything progresses; for it is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander."

"And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring chance and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature."

"Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus: non vitae sed scholae discimus."

"Besides, he who is feared, fears also; no one has been able to arouse terror and live in peace of mind."

"If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else."

"You see that man can endure toil: Cato, on foot, led an army through African deserts. You see that thirst can be endured: he marched over sun-baked hills, dragging the remains of a beaten army and with no train of supplies, undergoing lack of water and wearing a heavy suit of armour; always the last to drink of the few springs which they chanced to find. You see that honour, and dishonour too, can be despised: for they report that on the very day when Cato was defeated at the elections, he played a game of ball. You see also that man can be free from fear of those above him in rank: for Cato attacked Caesar and Pompey simultaneously, at a time when none dared fall foul of the one without endeavouring to oblige the other. You see that death can be scorned as well as exile: Cato inflicted exile upon himself and finally death, and war all the while."

"And this is the vote which [Cato] casts concerning them both: “If Caesar wins, I slay myself; if Pompey, I go into exile.” What was there for a man to fear who, whether in defeat or in victory, had assigned to himself a doom which might have been assigned to him by his enemies in their utmost rage? So he died by his own decision."

"No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances—in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death."

"Do you desire another case? Take that of the younger Marcus Cato, with whom Fortune dealt in a more hostile and more persistent fashion. But he withstood her, on all occasions, and in his last moments, at the point of death, showed that a brave man can live in spite of Fortune, can die in spite of her. His whole life was passed either in civil warfare, or under a political regime which was soon to breed civil war."

"He maintained this attitude up to the very end, and no man ever saw Socrates too much elated or too much depressed. Amid all the disturbance of Fortune, he was undisturbed."

"At quanto ego de illis melius existimo! ipsi quoque haec possunt facere, sed nolunt. Denique quem umquam ista destituere temptantem? cui non faciliora apparuere in actu? Non quia difficilia sunt non audemus, sed quia non audemus difficilia sunt."

"This spirit thrusts itself forward, confident of commendation and esteem. It is superior to all, monarch of all it surveys; hence it should be subservient to nothing, finding no task too heavy, and nothing strong enough to weigh down the shoulders of a man."

"Or, if you enjoy living with Greeks also, spend your time with Socrates and with Zeno: the former will show you how to die if it be necessary; the latter how to die before it is necessary. Live with Chrysippus, with Posidonius: they will make you acquainted with things earthly and things heavenly; they will bid you work hard over something more than neat turns of language and phrases mouthed forth for the entertainment of listeners; they will bid you be stout of heart and rise superior to threats. The only harbour safe from the seething storms of this life is scorn of the future, a firm stand, a readiness to receive Fortune’s missiles full in the breast, neither skulking nor turning the back."

"Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe."

"“New friends, however, will not be the same.” No, nor will you yourself remain the same; you change with every day and every hour."

"What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own."

"Socrates is reported to have replied, when a certain person complained of having received no benefit from his travels: “It serves you right! You travelled in your own company!”"

"The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long."

"Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life."

"But how foolish it is to set out one’s life, when one is not even owner of the morrow!"