# Quote — Ovid, Metamorphoses

> O mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,
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> Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
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> While corn, and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,
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> And planted orchards bend their willing load;
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> While labour'd gardens wholesom herbs produce,
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> And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;
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> Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
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> But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
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> While kine to pails distended udders bring,
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> And bees their hony redolent of Spring;
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> While Earth not only can your needs supply,
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> But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
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> A guiltless feast administers with ease,
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> And without blood is prodigal to please.

- Author: [Ovid](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid.md)
- Book: [Metamorphoses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ovid/metamorphoses.md)
- Original (la): Parcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis / corpora! sunt fruges, sunt deducentia ramos / pondere poma suo tumidaeque in vitibus uvae, / sunt herbae dulces, sunt quae mitescere flamma / mollirique queant; nec vobis lacteus umor / eripitur, nec mella thymi redolentia florem: / prodiga divitias alimentaque mitia tellus / suggerit atque epulas sine caede et sanguine praebet.
- 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-mortals-from

## More from this book

> No species remains constant: that great renovator of matter
>
> 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)