Great Throughts Treasury

"Birdes of a feather will flocke togither."

"Can the fish love the fisherman?"

"Captious, yet complaisant, sweet and bitter too, I cannot with thee live, nor yet without thee."

"Diaulus, lately a doctor, is now an undertaker' what he does as an undertaker, he used to do also as a doctor."

"Difficult easy-going, likewise you are sweet [and] sour: I am able to live neither with you nor without you."

"Difficult or easy, pleasant or bitter, you are the same you: I cannot live with you ? or without you."

"Disgraceful 'tis to treat small things as difficult; 'tis silly to waste time on foolish trifles."

"Divide the work and thus you'll shorten it."

"Do not pluck the beard of a dead lion."

"Do you ask what sort of a maid I desire or dislike, Flaccus? I dislike one too easy and one too coy. The just mean, which lies between the two extremes, is what I approve; I like neither that which tortures nor that which cloys."

"Do you ask why I am unwilling to marry a rich wife? It is because I am unwilling to be taken to husband by my wife. The mistress of the house should be subordinate to her husband, for in no other way, Priscus, will the wife and husband be on an equality."

"Do you wonder for what reason, Theodorus, notwithstanding your frequent requests and importunities, I have never presented you with my works? I have an excellent reason; it is lest you should present me with yours."

"Each day provides its own gifts."

"Every bird that upwards swings Bears the Cross upon its wings."

"Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have sting, honey, and brevity."

"Fannius, as he was fleeing from the enemy, put himself to death. Is not this, I ask, madness--to die, for fear of dying?"

"Flaccus, the sort of girl i hate is the scrawny one, with arms so thin my rings would fit them, hips that grate, spine like a saw, knees like a pin and a coccyx like a javelin. But all the same i don't go in for sheer bulk. I appreciate good meat, not blubber, on my plate."

"For life is not to live, but to be well."

"Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none."

"From no place can you exclude the fates."

"Gifts are hooks."

"Gifts are like fish-hooks; for who is not aware that the greedy char is deceived by the fly which he swallows?"

"Gifts are like hooks."

"Glory comes too late when we are nought but ashes."

"Glory paid to our ashes comes too late."

"He does not write those verses no one reads."

"He has no home whose home is all the world."

"He misses what is meant by epigram"

"He says anything that first comes into his mouth."

"He who is not in readiness to-day, will be less prepared to-morrow."

"He who prefers to give Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half."

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

"He who thinks the lives of Priam and of Nestor were long is much deceived and mistaken. Life consists not in living, but in enjoying health."

"He who weighs his burdens, can bear them."

"He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them?"

"Her grief is real who grieves when no one is by."

"Hidden evils are most dreaded."

"However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish."

"I always, you will be a poor man, if he be poor you are, I'm going to: no one now wealth is given to only the rich."

"I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baiae; but now I luxuriously thrust for noble pickle."

"I believe that man to be wretched whom none can please."

"I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip; you may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half. Are you inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep this whole half entirely to yourself, Postumus."

"I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and your limbs, and your bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed, not to fatigue myself with enumerating each of them, I could do without you, Chloe, altogether."

"I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name."

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

"I have granted you much that you asked: and yet you never cease to ask of me. He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse."

"I have not a farthing in the house; one thing only remains for me to do, Regulus, and that is to sell the presents which I have received from you; are you inclined to buy them?"

"I know all that better than my own name."

"I pleaded your cause, Sextus, having agreed to do so for two thousand sesterces. How is it that you have sent me only a thousand? "You said nothing," you tell me; "and this cause was lost through you." You ought to give me so much the more, Sextus, as I had to blush for you."

"I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged."