Virgil Quotes

292 Sourced Quotes

My life is lived, and I have played
The part that Fortune gave,
And now I pass, a queenly shade,
Majestic to the grave.

Virgil
Now, prostrate by an unmeant wound,
In death he welters on the ground,
And gazing on Italian skies
Of his loved Argos dreams, and dies.

Virgil
As for my sepulchre, let Heaven take care.

Virgil
Toil conquered the world, unrelenting toil, and want that pinches when life is hard.

Virgil
To sing thy praise, would heaven my breath prolong,
Infusing spirits worthy such a song.

Virgil
Starting with a bound, He turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground: Fire from his eyes, clouds from his nostrils flow.

Virgil
The gods, if gods to goodness are inclined;
If acts of mercy touch their heavenly mind,
And, more than all the gods, your generous heart.
Conscious of worth, requite its own desert!

Virgil
His snowy neck reclines upon his breast,
Like a fair flow'r by the keen share oppressed:
Like a white poppy sinking on the plain,
Whose heavy head is overcharged with rain.

Virgil
What men, what monsters, what inhuman race,
What laws, what barbarous customs of the place!

Virgil
The rest among the Britons he confined;
A race of men from all the world disjoint.

Virgil
Maybe one day it will be cheering to remember even these things.

Virgil
Then thus the bride: What fury seized on thee,
Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?
Dragged back again by cruel destinies,
An iron slumber shuts my swimming eyes.
And now farewell! Involved in shades of night,
For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight.
In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!

Virgil
There is but one safety to the vanquished—to hope not safety.

Virgil
Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.

Virgil
Fell lust of gold! abhorred, accurst!
What will not men to slake such thirst?

Virgil
Alas, pitiable boy—if only you might break your cruel fate!—you are to be Marcellus. [People,] give me lilies in armfuls.

Virgil
Thus she spoke and turned away with a flash of her rosy neck, and her ambrosial hair exhaled a divine fragrance; her dress flowed right down to her feet and her true godhead was evident from her walk.

Virgil
Thus all below, whether by Nature's curse,
Or Fate's decree, degenerate still to worse:
So the boat's brawny crew the current stem,
And, slow advancing, struggle with the stream:
But if they slack their hands, or cease to strive,
Then down the flood with headlong haste they drive.

Virgil
Hush your tongues from idle speech.

Virgil
Rumor goes forth at once, Rumor than whom No other speedier evil thing exists; She thrives by rapid movement, and acquires Strength as she goes; small at the first from fear, She presently uplifts herself aloft, And stalks upon the ground and hides her head Among the clouds.

Virgil
That happy place, the green groves of the dwelling of the blest.

Virgil
It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air — there's the rub, the task.

Virgil
I proved unfaithful to my former spouse,
And now I reap the fruits of broken vows!

Virgil
All things were full of horror and affright,
And dreadful even the silence of the night.

Virgil
We have made you [Priapus] of marble for the time being.

Virgil