“Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.”
Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus
Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit.
Book III, line 425
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
Source: Heroides
Context: Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.
“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.
Ovid book Ars amatoria
Book II, line 113 (tr. James Michie)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“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.
Ovid book Ars amatoria
Book II, line 233
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“Yield to the opposer, by yielding you will obtain the victory.”
Ovid book Ars amatoria
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)