Ovid Quotes

Blemishes are hid by night and every fault forgiven; darkness makes any woman fair.

Omnia mutantur; nihil interit

You will go most safely by the middle way.

Even as a cow she was lovely.

And now the measure of my song is done:
The work has reached its end; the book is mine,
None shall unwrite these words: nor angry Jove,
Nor war, nor fire, nor flood,
Nor venomous time that eats our lives away.
Then let that morning come, as come it will,
When this disguise I carry shall be no more,
And all the treacherous years of life undone,
And yet my name shall rise to heavenly music,
The deathless music of the circling stars.
As long as Rome is the Eternal City
These lines shall echo from the lips of men,
As long as poetry speaks truth on earth,
That immortality is mine to wear.

My purpose is to tell of bodies that have been changed into shapes of different kinds.

Medicine sometimes snatches away health, sometimes gives it.

She made up prayers and said them,
Worshipping unknown gods with unknown singing,
Her customary magic, which would cover
The white moon’s face and darken the sun with cloud.

for no god may undo what another god has done...

What is harder than rock, or softer than water? Yet soft water hollows out hard rock. Persevere.

Right it is to be taught even by the enemy.

By yielding you may obtain victory

Hurry to your goal together. That is full bliss when man and woman lie equally conquered.

He plunged his arms deep to embrace
One who vanished in agitated water.
Again and again he kissed
The lips that seemed to be rising to kiss his
But dissolved, as he touched them,
Into a soft splash and a shiver of ripples.
How could he clasp and caress his own reflection?
And still he could not comprehend
What the deception was, what the delusion.
He simply became more excited by it.
Poor misguided boy! Why clutch so vainly
At such a brittle figment? What you hope
To lay hold of has no existence.
Look away and what you love is nowhere.

Their useless torches on dry hedges throw,
That catch the flames, and kindle all the row;
So burns the God, consuming in desire,
And feeding in his breast a fruitless fire