“It is much easier to make a buffoon into a rich man than into a family man”
de scurra multo facilius divitem quam patrem familias fieri posse
Cicero, Pro Quinctio 55
Month: March 2012
Sappho, fragment 50
“The man who is pretty is so only as far as he looks; the man who is good is already beautiful”
ὀ μὲν γὰρ κάλος ὄσσον ἴδην πέλεται <κάλος>,
ὀ δὲ κἄγαθος αὔτικα καὶ κάλος ἔσσεται.
Sappho is from the island of Lesbos, whence the English word Lesbian. In the ancient world, women from Lesbos were known as some of the most beautiful women in the world.
Ovid, Ars Amatoria 3.603
“Pleasure that comes without risk is less welcomed”.
quae venit ex tuto, minus est accepta voluptas
Alcaeus, Fragment 377
“You drove me from my grief”
ἔκ μ’ ἔλασας ἀλγέων
Alcaeus of Mytilene was a lyric poet often paired with Sappho
Horace, Odes 2.3.1-2
“Remember to keep a level head in difficult circumstances”
aequam memento rebus in arduis
servare mentem
Thucydides 2. 44. 3-5
Cicero, In Verrem 1.1.4
“There is nothing so sacred that it cannot be sullied, nor anything so protected that it cannot be overcome by money”.
nihil esse tam sanctum quod non violari, nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit.
Homer, Odyssey 14.58-59
… πρὸς γὰρ Διός εἰσιν ἅπαντες
ξεῖνοί τε πτωχοί τε. δόσις δ’ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε
γίνεται ἡμετέρη·
“All strangers and beggars are from Zeus;
Our gift to them is small but dear.”
The full text.
Euenus (Aristotle, Metaphysics 4.5.1015a28)
Horace, Epistles 1.4.12-14
“Amidst hope and anxiety, fear and rage, believe that every day has risen as your last: pleasant is the arrival of the hour which was never expected”.
inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras
omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum:
grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora