Gaius Lucilius Quotes

Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia aena
vivere et esse homines, sic isti somnia ficta
vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse in aenis.
Pergula pictorum, veri nil, omnia ficta.

Vivite lurcones, comedones, vivite ventris!

You must undertake a labour that may bring praise and profit for you.

This is a little better than middling, that is a little less bad than what you would call the worst.

Hunc laborem sumas laudem qui tibi ac fructum ferat.

Accipiunt leges, populus quibus legibus exlex.

As baby children believe that all bronze statues are alive and are men, so these (superstitious grown-ups) think the fictions of dreams are real, and believe that bronze statues have a living heart inside. These things are a painters' gallery, nothing real, all make-believe.

The Roman people has been often beaten by force and overcome in many battles, but never in a whole war, in which lies all that is vital.

Aurum vis hominemne? Habeas. "Hominem? quid ad aurum?"

Ut Romanus populus victus vei, superatus proeliis
saepe est multis, bello vero numquam, in quo sunt omnia.

Frédéric Buret, Syphilis To-day and among the Ancients, tr. A. H. Ohmann-Dumesnil, vol. 1 (F. A. Davis, 1891), pp. 179–80

Publicanus vero ut Asiae fiam, ut scripturarius
pro Lucilio, id ego nolo et uno hoc non muto omnia.

O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane!