Lindsey Davis Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

He wore the purple; it was his entitlement. With it he had neither wreath nor jewels. For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence.

Lindsey Davis
In fact, making up a spiteful lie has become respectable. Today's "jesters" are outright public nuisances.

Lindsey Davis
Smartness always helps in gaining access to the houses of the wealthy. Anyone with a clean face is acceptable to thugs.

Lindsey Davis
Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul.

Lindsey Davis
The new "humour", if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it's now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it's even true.

Lindsey Davis
Intimidation and awe are how our rulers keep us respectful.

Lindsey Davis
This was no more cynical than most lying lozenge-pushers, but when he thought it mattered, Rhoemetalces had been honest. We cannot have that. Rome is a complex, sophisticated society. Truth is distrusted as much as Greek philosophy.

Lindsey Davis
But mere technical details can be worked out any time. All a hero needs is grit.

Lindsey Davis
Architectural drawings may look beautiful and be admired by critics but to be good, they have to work in daily use.

Lindsey Davis
Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats.

Lindsey Davis
Luck is a wonderful luxury. What could better prove that some are born under a star of good fortune than the career (and the large, comfortable home) of the Great King?

Lindsey Davis
In an ideal world I ought to have gone with him to observe their reactions, but in an ideal world heroes never get tired or depressed; what's more, heroes are paid more than me.

Lindsey Davis
Love and death are gritty subjects. Their appropriate handling by poets does not require myrtle petals and violets.

Lindsey Davis
Discovering that a fraud exists is only the first step. It has to be proved and the proof has to be absolutely watertight.

Lindsey Davis
To know another person's fortune smacks of wanting to control their fate for the wrong reasons.

Lindsey Davis
If being hit on the head by a falling flower tub could be worth cash to the victim, what price a child's life under civil law?

Lindsey Davis
The world is full of people slandering their birthplaces, as if they really believe that small-town life is different elsewhere.

Lindsey Davis
When I hear the words 'social order', I start looking around for somebody to pick a fight with.

Lindsey Davis
A wise partner does not come between her man and his best friend.

Lindsey Davis
That's the trouble with foreign travel. You spend half your time trying to find edible food, and the rest fighting off men who profess extravagant love to your female companions. I'm amazed how many women believe outright lies from foreigners.

Lindsey Davis
I asked why Grumio had had to turn to lesser things. 'No call. In my father or grandfather's day all I would have needed in life were my cloak and shoes, my flask and strigil, a cup and knife to take to dinner, and a small wallet for my earnings. Everyone who could find the wherewithal would eagerly ask a wandering jokesmith in.'
'Sounds just like being a vagrant philosopher!'
'A cynic,' he agreed readily. 'Exactly. Most cynics are witty and all clowns are cynical. Meet us on the road, and who could tell the difference?'
'Me, I hope! I'm a good Roman. I'd take a five-mile detour to avoid a philosopher.'

Lindsey Davis
A good bathe when you really need it can get you over almost anything.

Lindsey Davis
Senator, don't let your judgement be warped by one heady moment.

Lindsey Davis
To be born with nothing was grim. But to be born with everything, then to lose it, was far more cruel.

Lindsey Davis
Stick with it, Xanthus. There are fortunes to be made out of bristle for a man with deft hands.

Lindsey Davis
Never lend if you need repayment; never give where you want a return.

Lindsey Davis
'Do you kill people?'
'Not regularly. It's too much trouble making my peace with the gods afterwards.'

Lindsey Davis
Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink.

Lindsey Davis
'How old now?'
'Thirty. Downhill to the dark boat across the Styx. Probably be sick over the side in Charon's ferry too…'

Lindsey Davis
Not all the fine civic building programmes in the world would ever displace the raw forces that drive most of humankind. This was the true city: greed, corruption and violence.

Lindsey Davis