Juvenal Quotes

Ask for a valiant heart which has banished the fear of death, which looks upon length of days as one of the least of nature's gifts; which is able to suffer every kind of hardship, is proof against anger, craves for nothing, and reckons the trials and gruelling labours of Hercules as more desirable blessings than the amorous ease and the banquets and cushions of Sardanapallus. The things that I recommend you can grant to yourself.

The tongue is the worst part of a bad servant.

Majestic mighty Wealth is the holiest of our gods.

A pauper traveller will sing before a beggar.

All wish to be learned, but no one is willing to pay the price.

Men who ape the saint and play the sinner.

Lost money is bewailed with deeper sighs Than friends, or kindred, and with louder cries.

Your prayer must be for a healthy mind in a sound body. Ask for a brave soul that has no fear of death, deems length of life the least of nature's gifts and is able to bear any kind of sufferings, knows neither wrath nor desire and believes the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than the loves and feasts and downy cushions of Sardanapalus. Reveal what you are able to give yourself; the only path to a life of tranquility lies through virtue.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

There's no effrontery like that of a woman caught in the act; her very guilt inspires her with wrath and insolence.

Every great house is full of haughty servants.

Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.

Even savage animals can agree among themselves.

Make all fair allowance for the mistakes of youth.

The dowry, not the wife, is the object of attraction.

Bad men hate sin through fear of punishment; good men hate sin through their love of virtue.

Autumn is the harvest of greedy death.

Pleasures are enhanced by a moderate indulgence.

Here we all live in a state of ambitious poverty.

To keep up as good a cuisine as your father.

The thirst after fame is greater than that after virtue; for who embraces virtue if you take away its rewards?

Men who only live to eat.

Who is to guard the guards themselves?

The only gain from the friendship of the great is a fine dinner.

Poverty is bitter, but it has no harder pang than that it makes men ridiculous.

Hold it the greatest sin to prefer existence to honour, and for the sake of life to lose the reasons for living.

He who meditates a crime secretly within himself has all the guilt of the act.

Only death reveals what a nothing the body of man is.

The traveller with empty pockets will sing in the thief 's face.

When talent fails, indignation writes the verse.

If you are capable of submitting to insult you ought to be insulted.

The examples of vice at home corrupt us more quickly and easily than others, since they steal into our minds under the highest authority.

No one ever became thoroughly bad in one step.

The guilty are alarmed and turn pale at the slightest thunder.

Nature, in giving tears to man, confessed that he Had a tender heart; this is our noblest quality.

Beasts of like kind will spare those of kindred spots.

Wisdom triumphs over chance.

They whose sole bliss is eating can give but that one brutish reason why they live.

Luxury destroys more efficiently than war.

The love of popularity holds you in a vice.

Whenever fortune wishes to joke, she lifts people from what is humble to the highest extremity of affairs.

It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.

Nothing is so intolerable as a woman with a long purse.

When your armour is on, it is too late to retreat.

We are too quick to imitate depraved examples.

This is his first punishment, that by the verdict of his own heart no guilty man is acquitted.

Everything in Rome has its price.

He will be the last to discover the disgrace of his house.