“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim.
                                
                            
Ovid: Use
Ovid was Roman poet. Explore interesting quotes on use.
                                
                                    “We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Variant translation: We hunt for things unlawful with swift feet, / As if forbidden joys were only sweet. 
Book III; iv, 17 
Amores (Love Affairs)
                                    
                                
                                    “We all conceal
A god within us, we all deal
With heaven direct, from whose high places we derive
The inspiration by which we live.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Est deus in nobis, et sunt commercia caeli:
Sedibus aetheriis spiritus ille venit.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Book III, lines 549–550 (tr. James Michie) 
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
                                    
                                
                                    “If she's cool and unwilling to be wooed,
Just take it, don't weaken; in time she'll soften her mood.
Bending a bough the right way, gently, makes
It easy; use brute force, and it breaks.
With swimming rivers it's the same—
Go with, not against, the current.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Si nec blanda satis, nec erit tibi comis amanti,
Perfer et obdura: postmodo mitis erit.
Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus:
Frangis, si vires experiere tuas.
Obsequio tranantur aquae: nec vincere possis
Flumina, si contra, quam rapit unda, nates.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Book II, lines 177–182 (tr. James Michie) 
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
                                    
                                
                                    “It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe that there are.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit, esse putemus.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Book I, line 637 
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
                                    
                                
                                    “O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides
The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,
If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:
What else is this, but to devour our guests,
And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by destroying life, our life sustain;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Heu quantum scelus est in viscera viscera condi
ingestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus
alteriusque animans animantis vivere leto!
Scilicet in tantis opibus, quas, optima matrum,
terra parit, nil te nisi tristia mandere saevo
vulnera dente iuvat ritusque referre Cyclopum,
nec, nisi perdideris alium, placare voracis
et male morati poteris ieiunia ventris!
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Book XV, 88–95 (from Wikisource) 
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
                                    
                                
                                    “There is a god within us.
It is when he stirs us that our bosom warms; it is
his impulse that sows the seeds of inspiration.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Est deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo:
impetus hic sacrae semina mentis habet.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        VI, lines 5-6; translation by Sir James George Frazer 
Fasti (The Festivals)
                                    
                                
                                    “Water belongs to us all. Nature did not make the sun one person's property, nor air, nor water, cool and clear.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Usus communis aquarum est.
Nec solem proprium natura nec aera fecit
nec tenues undas
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Book VI, 349-351;  translation by Michael Simpson https://books.google.ca/books?id=hDPmwbCSSPEC 
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
                                    
                                
                                    “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)
                                    
                                
                                    “We're slow to believe what wounds us.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                    Tarde quae credita laedunt credimus.
                                
                            
                                        
                                        II, 9-10; translation by A. S. Kline 
Heroides (The Heroines)