Petronius Best Quotes & Sayings

Heaven is equally distant everywhere. — Petronius

A huge dog, tied by a chain, was painted on the wall and over it was written in capital letters 'Beware of the dog.' — Petronius

In every human undertaking there is something which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. "Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor" is an old and true saying of Petronius. — Arthur Schopenhauer

While fortune lasts you will see your friend's face. — Petronius

Leave your home, O youth, and seek out alien shores. A wider range of life has been ordained for you. — Petronius

What power has law where only money rules. — Petronius

A physician is nothing but a consoler of the mind. — Petronius

I was thinking of the Cumaean Sybil, who lived for a thousand years, so long that she shrank and was put in an urn. Eliot quoted it as epigraph for 'The Waste Land,' from Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon, 'For once I saw with my own eyes the Cumaean Sibyl hanging in a jar. When the boys asked her, "Sibyl, what do you want?" she said, "I want to die. — Lauren Groff

We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia's father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers' training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him ... The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve. — Lindsey Davis

from Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon, 'For once I saw with my own eyes the Cumaean Sibyl hanging in a jar. When the boys asked her, "Sibyl, what do you want?" she said, "I want to die." '" Long — Lauren Groff

One good turn deserves another. — Petronius

Petronius says that 'Mundus vult decipi - The world wants to be deceived.' That is very true, otherwise there wouldn't exist any religion! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining. — David Hume

Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn't agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting. — Lindsey Davis

The favor for the favor or One hand washes the other. — Petronius

I believe that school makes complete fools of our young men, because they see and hear nothing of ordinary life there. — Petronius

A doctor is nothing more than consolation for the spirit. — Petronius

A man who is always ready to believe what is told him will never do well, especially a businessman. — Petronius

Europe's history of trading relations with India is borne out in the writings of the ancient historians Herodotus, Pliny, Petronius and Ptolemy, and — Shashi Tharoor

The world wills itself to be deceived, so let it be deceived. — Petronius

Nothing is falser than people's preconceptions and ready-made opinions; nothing is sillier than their sham morality. — Petronius

Petronius was surely right in saying Fear made the gods. In primitive times fear of the unknown was normal; gratitude to an unknown was impossible. — J.M. Robertson

Beauty and wisdom are rarely conjoined. — Petronius

Just as dumb creatures are snared by food, human beings would not be caught unless they had a nibble of hope. — Petronius

Everyone will find what he's looking for. Nothing pleases everyone: this man gathers thorns, that one roses. — Petronius

It is fear that first brought gods into the world. — Petronius

He that has a penny in his purse, is worth a penny: Have and you shall be esteemed. — Petronius

Sometimes the buzz of reading about others eating comes from the voyeuristic thrill of seeing how the other half lives: the gold leaf and truffles or - in the case of Trimalchio's feast in Petronius' 'Satyricon' - the dormice and honey. — Bee Wilson

Outward beauty is not enough; to be attractive a woman must use words, wit, playfulness, sweet-talk, and laughter to transcend the gifts of nature. — Petronius

Women are one and all a set of vultures. — Petronius

So, Maximus the Fellatio Trainer - how does your prick feel about scratchy barbarian beards?"

Lucius Petronius — J.P. Kenwood

You've been robbed. Those times, where did they go? Once so alive but now hidden in a mass grave. And that's where the future ones are headed. Remember that. All the days to come will vanish thus. What value or meaning can they contain? We are hoarders of dust. — Petronius Jablonski