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Home  »  Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical  »  Persius


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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Persius

  • Indulge, and to thy genius freely give,
  • For not to live at ease is not to live.

  • Please not thyself the flattering crowd to hear;
  • ’Tis fulsome stuff, to please thy itching ear.
  • Survey thy soul, not what thou does appear,
  • But what thou art.

    • Each man has his own desires; all do not possess the same inclinations.

    For yesterday was once to-morrow.

    He conquers who endures.

    Hunger is the teacher of the arts, and the bestower of invention.

    Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases?

    It is pleasing to be pointed at with the finger and to have it said, “There goes the man.”

    Let them (the wicked) see the beauty of virtue, and pine at having forsaken her.

    Lives there the man with soul so dead as to disown the wish to merit the people’s applause, and having uttered words worthy to be kept by cedar oil to latest times, to leave behind him rhymes that dread neither herrings nor frankincense.

    Oh, the cares of men! how much emptiness there is in human concerns!

    Things fit only to give weight to smoke.

    Though thy face is glossed with specious art, thou retainest the cunning fox beneath thy vapid breast.


    Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD