Top 15 Plautus Quotes

But ne’ertheless reflect, the little mouse, how sage a brute it is! Who never trusts its safety to one hole : for when it finds one entrance is block’d up, it has secure some other outlet.

Cogitato, mus pusillus quam sit sapiens bestia, aetatem qui uni cubili nunquam committit suam : quia si unum ostium obsideatur, aliud perfugium gerit.

One eyewitness weighs more than ten hearsays. Seeing is believing, all the world over.

Pluris est oculatus testis unus, quam auriti decem. Qui audiunt, audita dicunt: qui vident, plane sciunt.

The valiant profit more
Their country, than the finest cleverest speakers.

Ne male loquare absenti amico.

That expression, "He means well," is useless unless he does well.

Nequam illud verbum‘st, Bene vult, nisi qui bene facit.

You cannot eat your cake and have it too, unless you think your money is immortal. The fool too late, his substance eaten up, reckons the cost. (translator Thornton)

Non tibi illud apparere, si sumas, potest, nisi tu immortale rere esse argentum tibi. Sero atque stulte, prius quod cautum oportuit, postquam comedit rem, post rationem putat.

These things are not for the best, nor as I think they ought to be; but still they are better than that which is downright bad. (translator Henry Thomas Riley)

Non optuma haec sunt neque ut ego aequom censeo : verum meliora sunt quam quae deterruma.

Non aetate, verum ingenio apiscitur sapientia.

For what is yours is mine, and mine is yours.

Quod tuum’st, meum’st; omne meum est autem tuum.