“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 may envy every one, but no one envies you.

A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice.

The face that cannot smile is never fair.

Of no day can the retrospect cause pain to a good man.

Those they praise, but they read the others.

No amount of misfortune will satisfy the man who is not satisfied with reading a hundred epigrams.

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.

If there are ripples on the surface of a lake, we cannot see the depth. Similarly unless the mind is restful, we cannot experience the harmony and union within us.

This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty.

As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes and seas and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.

Every lake belongs to the quietness desired by the swans.

You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.

I saw a seagull hanging out by a lake, but I said, “Don’t worry, Dude. I won’t say anything.”

People conquered on different sides of the lake should be ruled on different sides of the lake.

Sometimes all you need is a lake shoot early in the morning.