I never sleep comfortably except when I am at sermon or when I pray to God.

Wait a second while I take a swig off this bottle: it's my true and only Helicon, my Caballine fount, my sole Enthusiasm. Here, drinking, I deliberate, I reason, I resolve and conclude. After the epilogue I laugh, I write, I compose, I drink. Ennius drinking would write, writing would drink.

From the gut comes the strut, and where hunger reigns, strength abstains.

Ignorance is the mother of all evils.

The remedy for thirst? It is the opposite of the one for a dog bite: run always after a dog, he'll never bite you; drink always before thirst, and it will never overtake you.

When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself.

Few and signally blessed are those whom Jupiter has destined to be cabbage-planters. For they've always one foot on the ground andthe other not far from it. Anyone is welcome to argue about felicity and supreme happiness. But the man who plants cabbages I now positively declare to be the happiest of mortals.