Juvenal - Satires

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Rarely do we meet in one combined, a beauteous body and a virtuous mind.

Juvenal
A rare bird on this earth, like nothing so much as a black swan.

Juvenal
Grammarian, rhetorician, geometrician, painter, trainer, soothsayer, rope-dancer, physician, magician—he knows everything. Tell the hungry little Greek to go to heaven; he'll go.

Juvenal
An inveterate and incurable itch for writing besets many, and grows old in their sick hearts.

Juvenal
The misfortunes of poverty carry with them nothing harder to bear than that it makes men ridiculous.

Juvenal
They do not easily rise out of obscurity whose talents straitened circumstances obstruct at home.

Juvenal
Only two things does he [the modern citizen] anxiously wish for—bread and circuses.

Juvenal
All the doings of mankind, their wishes, fears, anger, pleasures, joys, and varied pursuits, form the motley subject of my book.

Juvenal
Many suffer from the incurable disease of writing, and it becomes chronic in their sick minds.

Juvenal
If nature refuses, indignation will produce verses.

Juvenal
Count it the greatest sin to prefer mere existence to honour, and for the sake of life to lose the reasons for living.

Juvenal
Trust me no tortures which the poets feign
Can match the fierce unutterable pain
He feels, who night and day devoid of rest
Carries his own accuser in his breast.

Juvenal
But grant the wrath of Heaven be great, 'tis slow.
In Latin: Ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum est.

Juvenal
Ask for a valiant heart which has banished the fear of death, which looks upon the length of days as one of the least of nature's gifts; which is able to suffer every kind of hardship, is proof against anger, craves for nothing, and reckons the trials and gruelling labours of Hercules as more desirable blessings than the amorous ease and the banquets and cushions of Sardanapallus. The things that I recommend you can grant to yourself.

Juvenal
O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined Sink not so deep into the generous mind, As the contempt and laughter of mankind.

Juvenal
Nature never says one thing, Wisdom another.

Juvenal
For He, who gave this vast machine to roll, Breathed Life in then, in us a Reasoning Soul; That kindred feelings might our state improve, And mutual wants conduct to mutual love.

Juvenal
Nature confesses that she has bestowed on the human race hearts of softest mould, in that she has given us tears.

Juvenal
Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin, Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within.

Juvenal
Nothing is more audacious than these women when detected; they assume anger, and take courage from the very crime itself.

Juvenal
The greatest reverence is due to a child! If you are contemplating a disgraceful act, despise not your child's tender years.

Juvenal
The abject pleasure of an abject mind
And hence so dear to poor weak woman kind.
In Latin: Vindicta Nemo magis gaudet, quam femina.

Juvenal
All arts his own, the hungry Greekling counts; And bid him mount the skies, the skies he mounts.

Juvenal
Fond man! though all the heroes of your line Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine In proud display; yet take this truth from me-- Virtue alone is true nobility!

Juvenal
The sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, And its best flavour temperance gives to joy.

Juvenal
The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things —bread and circuses!

Juvenal
All wish to possess knowledge, but no one is willing to pay the price.

Juvenal
A rare bird on earth, comparable to a black swan.

Juvenal
Who would put up with the Gracchi complaining about subversion?

Juvenal
The Syrian Orontes has now for long been pouring into the Tiber, with its own language and ways of behaving.

Juvenal