Ovid: Trending quotes
Ovid trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
“The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all.”
Causa latet, vis est notissima
Variant translation: The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.
Book IV, 287
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
Variant: The cause is hidden, but the result is well known.
“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit (everything changes, nothing perishes).”
Variant: All things change; nothing perishes.
Source: Metamorphoses
“The event proves well the wisdom of her [Phyllis'] course.”
Heroides (The Heroines)
Original: (la) Exitus acta probat.
The end proves the acts (were done), or the result is a test of the actions; Ovid's line 85 full translation:
Variant translations: The ends justify the means. All's well that ends well. NB: the end does not always equal the goal.
II, 85
“Carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno.”
Poetry comes fine-spun from a mind at ease.
I, i, 39
Tristia (Sorrows)
“Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor.”
I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse.
Book VII, 20
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
“Beauty's a frail flower.”
Forma bonum fragile est.
Book II, line 113 (tr. James Michie)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“Far away be that fate!”
Procul omen abesto!
Book I; xiv, 41
Amores (Love Affairs)
“Plenty has made me poor.”
Inopem me copia fecit.
Book III, 466
Variant translation: Abundance makes me poor.
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
“Love is a kind of warfare.”
Militiae species amor est.
Book II, line 233
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“Yield to the opposer, by yielding you will obtain the victory.”
Book II, line 197
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies.”
Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.
Book XV, 165 (as translated by John Dryden); on the transmigration of souls.
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
“Poetry comes fine-spun from a mind at ease.”
Carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno.
I, i, 39
Tristia (Sorrows)
“Time, the devourer of all things.”
Tempus edax rerum.
Book XV, 234
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
“We're slow to believe what wounds us.”
Tarde quae credita laedunt credimus.
II, 9-10; translation by A. S. Kline
Heroides (The Heroines)
“They bear punishment with equanimity who have earned it.”
Aequo animo poenam, qui meruere, ferunt.
Book II, vii, 12
Amores (Love Affairs)
“Your right arm is useful in the battle; but when it comes to thinking you need my guidance. You have force without intelligence; while mine is the care for to-morrow. You are a good fighter; but is I who help Atrides select the time of fighting. Your value is in your body only; mine, in mind. And, as much as he who directs the ship surpasses him who only rows it, as much as the general exceeds the common soldier, so much greater am I than you. For in these bodies of ours the heart is of more value than the hand; all our real living is in that.”
Tibi dextera bello
utilis: ingenium est, quod eget moderamine nostro;
tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri;
tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum
eligit Atrides; tu tantum corpore prodes,
nos animo; quantoque ratem qui temperat, anteit
remigis officium, quanto dux milite maior,
tantum ego te supero; nec non in corpore nostro
pectora sunt potiora manu: vigor omnis in illis.
Book XIII, 361–369; translation by Frank Justus Miller https://archive.org/details/metamorphoseswit02oviduoft
Metamorphoses (Transformations)