# Quote — Ovid, Metamorphoses

> O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
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> Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
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> Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;
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> Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
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> 'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides
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> The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,
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> If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,
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> And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:
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> What else is this, but to devour our guests,
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> And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!
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> We, by destroying life, our life sustain;
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> And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.

- Author: [Ovid](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid.md)
- Book: [Metamorphoses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid/metamorphoses.md)
- Original (la): Heu quantum scelus est in viscera viscera condi / ingestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus / alteriusque animans animantis vivere leto! / Scilicet in tantis opibus, quas, optima matrum, / terra parit, nil te nisi tristia mandere saevo / vulnera dente iuvat ritusque referre Cyclopum, / nec, nisi perdideris alium, placare voracis / et male morati poteris ieiunia ventris!
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ovid#Metamorphoses_(Transformations)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid/metamorphoses/o-impious-use

## More from this book

> No species remains constant: that great renovator of matter
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> Nature, endlessly fashions new forms from old: there’s nothing
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> in the whole universe that perishes, believe me; rather
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> it renews and varies its substance. What we describe as birth
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> is no more than incipient change from a prior state, while dying
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> is merely to quit it. Though the parts may be transported
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> hither and thither, the sum of all matter is constant.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid/metamorphoses/no-species-remains.md)

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid/metamorphoses/what-however-is-my-fault.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid/metamorphoses/your-right-arm.md)