Metamorphoses

Quotes

1. No species remains constant: that great renovator of matter

   Nature, endlessly fashions new forms from old: there’s nothing

   in the whole universe that perishes, believe me; rather

   it renews and varies its substance. What we describe as birth

   is no more than incipient change from a prior state, while dying

   is merely to quit it. Though the parts may be transported

   hither and thither, the sum of all matter is constant.

2. What, however, is my fault? Unless to have played can be called a fault, unless it can be called a fault to have loved.

3. Your right arm is useful in the battle; but when it comes to thinking you need my guidance. You have force without intelligence; while mine is the care for to-morrow. You are a good fighter; but is I who help Atrides select the time of fighting. Your value is in your body only; mine, in mind. And, as much as he who directs the ship surpasses him who only rows it, as much as the general exceeds the common soldier, so much greater am I than you. For in these bodies of ours the heart is of more value than the hand; all our real living is in that.

4. A creature of a more exalted kind

   Was wanting yet, and then was Man designed;

   Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,

   For empire formed, and fit to rule the rest.

5. He is beautiful even to enemy eyes.

6. Water belongs to us all. Nature did not make the sun one person's property, nor air, nor water, cool and clear.

7. The cause is hidden, but the result is well known.

8. The gods have their own rules.

9. O mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,

   Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:

   While corn, and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,

   And planted orchards bend their willing load;

   While labour'd gardens wholesom herbs produce,

   And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;

   Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,

   But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;

   While kine to pails distended udders bring,

   And bees their hony redolent of Spring;

   While Earth not only can your needs supply,

   But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;

   A guiltless feast administers with ease,

   And without blood is prodigal to please.

10. He, because years restrained him from warring, fought by speaking; he attacked and cursed the criminal weapons.

11. And he turned his mind to unknown arts.

12. Pointing to a pile of dust, that had collected, I foolishly begged to have as many anniversaries of my birth, as were represented by the dust. But I forgot to ask that the years should be accompanied by youth.

13. Plenty has made me poor.

14. Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies.

15. I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse.

16. Then the omnipotent Father with his thunder made Olympus tremble, and from Ossa hurled Pelion.

17. Thus, while the mute creation downward bend

    Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,

    Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes

    Beholds his own hereditary skies.

18. The workmanship excelled the materials.

19. My son, I caution you to keep

    The middle way, for if your pinions dip

    Too low the waters may impede your flight;

    And if they soar too high the sun may scorch them.

    Fly midway.

20. For those things which were done either by our fathers, or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, we can scarcely call our own.

21. You will be safest in the middle.

22. O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,

    Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:

    Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;

    Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.

    'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides

    The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,

    If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,

    And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:

    What else is this, but to devour our guests,

    And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!

    We, by destroying life, our life sustain;

    And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.

23. Time, the devourer of all things.

24. Nomenque erit indelebile nostrum.

25. Invia virtuti nulla est via!

26. Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

27. Ars adeo latet arte sua.

28. Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles.

That’s all the quotes.

28 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more