“What women say to lovers, you’ll agree, One writes on running water or on air.”

Godlike the man who sits at her side, who watches and catches that laughter which (softly) tears me to tatters: nothing is left of me, each time I see her.

Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.

Away with you, water, destruction of wine!

There is nothing more foolish than a foolish laugh.

I hate and I love. Perchance you ask why I do that. I know not, but I feel that I do and I am tortured. [Lat., Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.]

Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill bred it is!

Every one has his faults: but we do not see the wallet on our own backs.

What a woman says to an eager lover, write it on running water, write it on air.

It is difficult to lay aside a confirmed passion.

The vows that woman makes to her fond lover are only fit to be written on air or on the swiftly passing stream.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love. Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus

I hate and love. You ask, perhaps, how can that be? I know not, but I feel the agony.

It is difficult to suddenly give up a long love. Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem

Give up wanting to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking anybody can be grateful.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more.

Now Spring restores the balmy heat, now Zephyr’s sweet breezes calm the rage of the equinoctial sky.

Many lovers have been divorced By having what is free enforced.

There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible – magic to make the sanest man go mad.

He is not a lover who does not love forever.

Love is timeless. Death does not separate the lover from the beloved.

Most people in the world are Christ lovers. And then there are Christ haters. But all of them are fixated on Christ, and he perpetuates for ever.

Is it really so that the one I love is everywhere?

Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.

He feels particularly ashamed if ever he is seen by his lovers to be invovled in something dishonourable.