Martial citations

“Virtue extends our days: he lives two lives who relives his past with pleasure.”
Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus. Hoc est Vivere bis vita posse priore frui.

“The bee enclosed and through the amber shown
Seems buried in the juice which was his own.”

“My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.”
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.

“You praise, in three hundred verses, Sabellus, the baths of Ponticus, who gives such excellent dinners. You wish to dine, Sabellus, not to bathe.”
Laudas balnea versibus trecentis Cenantis bene Pontici, Sabelle. Vis cenare, Sabelle, non lavari.

“Stop abusing my verses, or publish some of your own.”

“Tis a hard task this, not to sacrifice manners to wealth.”
Ardua res haec est opibus non tradere mores.

“A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.”
Quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat.

“Selius affirms, in heav'n no gods there are:
And while he thrives, and they their thunder spare,
His daring tenet to the world seems fair. Anon. 1695.”
Nullos esse deos, inane caelum Adfirmat Segius: probatque, quod se Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum.

“They praise those works, but read these.”
Laudant illa sed ista legunt.

“They [the hours] pass by, and are put to our account.”
Nobis pereunt et imputantur.

“Let a defect, which is possibly but small, appear undisguised.
A fault concealed is presumed to be great.”
Simpliciter pateat vitium fortasse pusillum: Quod tegitur, magnum creditur esse malum

“I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee.”

“Glory paid to ashes comes too late.”
Cineri gloria sera venit.

“Although the words run speedily, the hand is swifter than they; the tongue has not yet, the hand has already, completed its work.”
Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis; Nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus.

“Tis degrading to undertake difficult trifles; and foolish is the labour spent on puerilities.”
Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum.

“Fortune to many gives too much, enough to none.”
Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli.

“Take while you can; brief is the moment of profit.”
Accipe quam primum; brevis est occasio lucri.

“You will always be poor, if you are poor, Aemilianus. Wealth is given to-day to none save the rich.”
Semper eris pauper, si pauper es, Aemiliane; Dantur opes nulli nunc, nisi divitibus.

“Let me have a plump home-born slave, have a wife not too lettered, have night with sleep, have day without a lawsuit.”
Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux: Sit nox cum somno: sit sine lite dies.

“The mode of death is sadder than death itself.”

“You complain, friend Swift, of the length of my epigrams, but you yourself write nothing. Yours are shorter.”

“Believe me, wise men don't say ‘I shall live to do that’, tomorrow's life is too late; live today.”
Non est, crede mihi, sapientis dicere ‘Vivam’: Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.

“Neither fear your death's day nor long for it.”

“You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't say no.”

“Life is not living, but living in health.”
Vita non est vivere, sed valera vita est.

“He who refuses nothing…will soon have nothing to refuse.”

“Difficult and easy-going, pleasant and churlish, you are at the same time: I can neither live with you nor without you.”
Difficilis facilis iucundus acerbus es idem: Nec possum tecum vivere nec sine te.

“If glory comes after death, I hurry not.”
Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.

“You invite no man to dinner, Cotta, but your bath-companion; the baths alone provide you with a guest. I was wondering why you had never asked me; now I understand that when naked I displeased you.”
Invitas nullum nisi cum quo, Cotta, lavaris et dant convivam balnea sola tibi mirabar quare numquam me, Cotta, vocasses: iam scio me nudum displicuisse tibi.