Roman Poet Quotes & Sayings

Thousands of years ago, a Roman poet wrote, "I am a human being, therefore nothing human is foreign to me." I believe it to be true. So if this is possible for one human, it is possible for anyone. The path might be different, but the destination same. — Kamal Ravikant

It's probable that doctors would tell me indulging Dad's delusions is not advisable, but what the hell. — Giselle Simlett

I share every aspect of my life with the Internet. Whether or not that's a good thing, I don't know. — Troye Sivan

Individual potential of life is cosmic potential. Individual is divine deep inside. Transcendental experience awakens that divinity in man. And when you kill a man you deprive him of that birthright of it. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Without fully realizing it, I began writing my first book. It was neither a vocation nor a particular gift that pushed me to write, but quite simply the enigma posed by a man I had no chance of finding again, and by all those questions that would never have an answer. — Patrick Modiano

My girl was mad and I loved her. Upon a night, she read my poetry; and kissing me madly she cried, 'You are a genius, my love!' To which I replied, 'My girl,' whispering, 'Every doctor in this land with a prescription pad is more of a genius than I. — Roman Payne

If one considers the characters in the plays of Shakespeare, in the poems of the Roman poet Ovid, in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, and even in the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, they can be recognized in our daily lives. Their actions were driven by the same motives as ours - ambition, love, pride, fear, anger, sympathy, and fun. — John H. Vanston

The Romans were a strong power before Virgil, but the Greeks had captured their imaginations. While Rome conquered physical Greece, Greek mythology had enveloped Rome. The Empire coul be confident in itself until a Roman poet matched Homer and harmonized Greek civilization with Roman ideals — John Mark Reynolds

If you're too hung up on improvising 'correctly', you will almost always fail. — Craig Cackowski

White rhythm is waltzes, marches, and the polka. In Africa, rhythm is used for a celebratory groove, but white rhythm doesn't have such an enormous vocabulary of spirits. It's basically militant. — Joni Mitchell

Apollinaire said a poet should be 'of his time.' I say objects of the Digital Age belong in newspapers, not literature. When I read a novel, I don't want credit cards; I want cash in ducats and gold doubloons. — Roman Payne

Nihil humanum a me alienum puto, said the Roman poet Terence: 'Nothing human is alien to me.' The slogan of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service could have been the reverse: To us, no aliens are human. — Christopher Hitchens

Celebrate my heart, at ease or on fire, in my usual featherbrained way.

Horace, Roman Poet
Ode I-6, 23 BCE — Vivian Swift

If the diver always thought of the shark, he would never lay hands on the pearl,' said Sa'di, a Persian poet from the thirteenth century. — Roman Krznaric

They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits. — Joseph Heller

You know that you yourself are not always in the same state. If you are exact today, closely united to God, and a consolation to the whole house, tomorrow you will be out of sorts, indolent, and a source of affliction to others. Then you will need their support, as you have supported them. — Vincent De Paul

In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references! — Bart D. Ehrman

I know something quite sure. We'll never have peace with this Syrian regime. They'll never give us relief, and we'll never forget that. — Walid Jumblatt

On what is valuable thieves and the law agree. — James Richardson

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane. — Hermann Hesse

Zero-sum thinking is a name for envy. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, gives an apt description of the "House of Envy" (as a poet in that most zero-sum of political systems, the Roman empire, might): "Envy within, busy at the meal of snake's flesh... her tongue dripped venom. Only the sight of suffering could bring a smile to her lips. She never knew the comfort of sleep, but... looked with dismay on men's good fortune... She could hardly refrain from weeping when she saw no cause for tears." I didn't know Hillary Clinton's involvement in politics dated back to the reign of Augustus. Then — P. J. O'Rourke

I actually didn't listen to the Beatles song 'Nowhere Man' when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was 'Abbey Road.' Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me. — Aleksandar Hemon

it is the Mediterranean, specifically Italy, that gave us the poet Ovid, who in the Metamorphoses deplored the eating of animals, and the vegetarian Leonardo da Vinci, who envisioned a day when the life of an animal would be valued as highly as that of a person, and Saint Francis, who once petitioned the Holy Roman Emperor to scatter grain on fields on Christmas Day and give the crested larks a feast. — Mary Roach

This spirit of humanity breathes in Cicero and Virgil. Hence the veneration paid to the poet of the Aeneid by the fathers and throughout the middle ages. Augustine calls him the noblest of poets, and Dante, "the glory and light of other poets," and "his master," who guided him through the regions of hell and purgatory to the very gates of Paradise. It was believed that in his fourth Eclogue he had prophesied the advent of Christ. This interpretation is erroneous; but "there is in Virgil," says an accomplished scholar,84 "a vein of thought and sentiment more devout, more humane, more akin to the Christian than is to be found in any other ancient poet, whether Greek or Roman. He was a spirit prepared and waiting, though he knew it not, for some better thing to be revealed. — Philip Schaff

The poet believed that 'Beauty' first entered the world not at its creation, nor with the first garden, the first sunrise, the birth of the first man and woman and their first sexual act. The poet believed that 'Beauty' entered the world the day the first child blushed. — Roman Payne

Now I'm leaving
Any moment I'll be gone
I think you'll notice
I think you'll wonder what went wrong
I'm not choosing
But I'm running out of fight
And this was decided so long ago
It was last night — Gayle Forman

Hatred for Obama ... has more to do with race than anything else. — Graydon Carter

My main efforts focussed on trying to identify the rate controlling steps during the cell cycle. Crucial for this analysis were wee mutants that were advanced prematurely through the cell cycle and so divided at a reduced cell size. — Paul Nurse

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore defeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems. — Robinson Jeffers

The writer, having lost his way in a gloomy forest, and being hindered by certain wild beasts from ascending a mountain, is met by Virgil, who promises to show him the punishments of Hell, and afterwards of Purgatory; and that he shall then be conducted by Beatrice into Paradise. He follows the Roman Poet. — Dante Alighieri