Juvenal Quotes

early 2nd century Roman poet

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (c. 55 – c. 140), anglicized as Juvenal, was a Roman satiric poet.

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Native Name: Decimus Iunius Iuuenalis

Alternative Names: Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis • Decimus Junius Juvenalis

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What’s infamy matter if you keep your fortune?

It is to be prayed that the mind be sound in a sound body.
Ask for a brave soul that lacks the fear of death,
which places the length of life last among nature’s blessings,
which is able to bear whatever kind of sufferings,
does not know anger, lusts for nothing and believes
the hardships and savage labors of Hercules better than
the satisfactions, feasts, and feather bed of an Eastern king.
I will reveal what you are able to give yourself;
For certain, the one footpath of a tranquil life lies through virtue.

Who could identify fragments 260 of ownerless flesh and bone? The poor man’s flattened carcase would vanish along with his soul.

Probitas laudatur et alget

For no deity is held in such reverence amongst us as Wealth; though as yet, O baneful money, thou hast no temple of thine own; not yet have we reared altars to Money in like manner as we worship Peace and Honour, Victory and Virtue

It is difficult not to write satire.

Must this with farce and folly rack my
head unpunish'd ? that with sing-song,
Whine me dead?

Fati valet hora benigni

Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.

show me the apartment 235 that lets you sleep! In this city sleep costs millions, and that’s the root of the trouble.

Nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses.

However faster we pedestrians may hurry, crowds surge ahead, those behind us buffet my rib-cage, poles poke into me; one lout swings a crossbeam down on my skull, another scores with a barrel. My legs are mud-encrusted, from all sides big feet kick me, a hobnailed soldier’s boot lands squarely on my toes.

Would you not like to fill up a whole note-book at the street crossings when you see a forger borne along upon the necks of six porters, and exposed to view on this side and on that in his almost naked litter, and reminding you of the lounging Maecenas: one who by help of a scrap of paper and a moistened seal has converted himself into a fine and wealthy gentleman?

Denn selten sind die Guten; zähle sie, es sind kaum so viele
wie die Tore Thebens oder die Mündungsarme des reichen Nil.

The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was.