Catullus Quotes

Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri,
Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.

What a woman says to her ardent lover should be written in wind and running water.

What he himself is, whether he is or is not, he does not know so much as this.

Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes
tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque?

Otium et reges prius et beatas
perdidit urbes.

Mourn, ye Graces and Loves, and all you whom the Graces love. My lady's sparrow is dead, the sparrow my lady's pet, whom she loved more than her own eyes.

It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-standing love.

Ille mi par esse Deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare Divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
spectat et audit
dulce ridentem.

Siqua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas
Est homini.

Wandering through many countries and over many seas I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies, to present you with the last guerdon of death, and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes, since fortune has taken your own self away from me—alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me! Yet now meanwhile take these offerings, which by the custom of our fathers have been handed down—a sorrowful tribute—for a funeral sacrifice; take them, wet with many tears of a brother, and for ever, my brother, hail and farewell!

Quid datur a divis felici optatius hora?

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.

Nunc iam nulla viro iuranti femina credat,
nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles;
quis dum aliquid cupiens animus praegestit apisci,
nil metuunt iurare, nihil promittere parcunt:
sed simul ac cupidae mentis satiata libido est,
dicta nihil metuere, nihil periuria curant.

If anything ever happened to any one who eagerly longed and never hoped, that is a true pleasure to the mind.

Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.