Virgil - Georgics

41 Sourced Quotes

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Oh happy, if he knew his happy state!
The swain, who, free from business and debate,
Receives his easy food from Nature's hand,
And just returns of cultivated land!

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

Virgil
Just so, if one may compare small things with great, an innate love of getting drives these Attic bees each with his own function.

Virgil
O farmers excessively fortunate if only they recognized their blessings!

Virgil
My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life:
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley, and a lofty wood.

Virgil
For God the whole created mass inspires:
Through heaven and earth and ocean's depth he throws
His influence round, and kindles as he goes.

Virgil
Unremitting labour
And harsh necessity's hand will master anything.

Virgil
A wet summer and a fine winter should be the farmer's prayer.

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

Virgil
Three times they endeavoured to pile Ossa on Pelion, no less, and to roll leafy Olympus on top of Ossa; three times our Father broke up the towering mountains with a thunderbolt.

Virgil
A great fire, unless you feed it, spends its rage in vain.

Virgil
So strong is custom, such effects can use
In tender souls of pliant plants produce.

Virgil
His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;
His little children, climbing for a kiss,
Welcome their father's late return at night;
His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight.

Virgil
All, with united force, combine to drive The lazy drones from the laborious hive.

Virgil
Such rage of honey in their bosom beats,
And such a zeal they have for flow'ry sweets.

Virgil
Fortunate too is the man who has come to know the gods of the countryside.

Virgil
In youth alone, unhappy mortals live; But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive: Discolored sickness, anxious labor, come, And age, and death's inexorable doom.

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
But the race remains immortal, the fortune of the house stands firm for many years, and the grandfathers' grandfathers are numbered in the roll.
Of a community of bees

Virgil
Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake.

Virgil
May the Muses sweet, Whose rites I hear with mighty passion pierced, Receive, and show the paths and stars of heaven, The sun's eclipses and the labouring moons.

Virgil
But meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying.

Virgil
They change their savage mind,
Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part,
Obey the rules and discipline of art.

Virgil
But the commanding Muse my chariot guides,
Which o'er the dubious cliff securely rides;
And pleas'd I am, no beaten road to take,
But first the way to new discoveries make.

Virgil
Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things.
Of lucretius

Virgil
The fatter earth by handling we may find,
With ease distinguished from the meagre kind:
Poor soil will crumble into dust; the rich
Will to the fingers cleave like clammy pitch.

Virgil
Swim through the serene summer sky.

Virgil
These movements of souls and these contests, however great, having been contained by the throwing of a little dust, will be quiet.

Virgil
Indulging in the studies of inglorious leisure.

Virgil
And when the rising sun has first breathed on us with his panting horses, over there the red evening-star is lighting his late lamps.

Virgil