“In adversity it is easy to despise life; he is truly brave who can endure a wretched life.”

If you are poor now, Aemilianus, you will always be poor. Riches are now given to none but the rich.

A good man enlarges the term of his own existence.

The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved in amber, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar.

However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish.

Work divided is in that manner shortened.

He truly sorrows who sorrows unseen.

My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.

To-morrow I will live, the fool does say; To-day itself’s too late, the wise lived yesterday.

Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have sting, honey, and brevity.

It is to live twice when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.

I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baiae; but now I luxuriously thrust for noble pickle.

You should not fear, nor yet should you wish for your last day.

Our days pass by, and are scored against us.

Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none.

This I ask, is it not madness to kill thyself in order to escape death?

Life is not living, but living in health.