Best 125 quotes of Martial on MyQuotes

A fisherman's walk: three steps and overboard.

A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice.

A good man enlarges the term of his own existence.

A jar of wine so priceless did not deserve to die. and Never think of leaving perfume or wines to your heir. Administer these youself and let him have the money.

All your female friends are either old or ugly; nay, more ugly than old women usually are. These you lead about in your train, and drag with you to feasts, porticos and theaters. Thus, Fabulla, you seem handsome, thus you seem young.

Be cheerful, if you are wise.

Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.

Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear... But yours gives most; for mine did only lend Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.

Be merry if you are wise.

Be not too thick with anybody; your joys will be fewer, and so will pains.

Be satisfied, and pleased with what thou art, Act cheerfully and well thou allotted part; Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past, And neither fear, nor wish, the approaches of the last.

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.

Do you ask what sort of a maid I desire or dislike, Flaccus? I dislike one too easy and one too coy. The just mean, which lies between the two extremes, is what I approve; I like neither that which tortures nor that which cloys.

Do you ask why I am unwilling to marry a rich wife? It is because I am unwilling to be taken to husband by my wife. The mistress of the house should be subordinate to her husband, for in no other way, Priscus, will the wife and husband be on an equality.

Every bird that upwards swings Bears the Cross upon its wings.

Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have sting, honey, and brevity.

For life is only life when blessed with health.

Fortune gives many too much, but none enough.

Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none.

Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality, and benevolence; the other from pride or fear, or from the fact that you cannot take your money with you to the other world.

Genuine is the sorrow endured without anyone else knowing about it.

Gifts are like fish-hooks; for who is not aware that the greedy char is deceived by the fly which he swallows?

Givers of great dinners know few enemies.

Glory comes too late when we are nought but ashes.

He truly sorrows who sorrows unseen.

He who thinks that the lives of Priam and of Nestor were long is much deceived and mistaken. Life consists not in living, but in enjoying health.

He who weighs his burdens, can bear them.

He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them?

He writes nothing whose writings are not read.

I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baiae; but now I luxuriously thrust for noble pickle.

I believe that man to be wretched whom none can please.

I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip; you may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half. Are you inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep this whole half entirely to yourself, Postumus.

I do not hate the man, but his vices.

I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; I can only say this, "I do not love thee.

If fame comes after death, I'm in no hurry for it. [Lat., Si post fata venit gloria non propero.]

If fame is to come only after death, I am in no hurry for it.

If I remember right, Aelia, you had four teeth; a cough displaced two, another two more. You can now cough without anxiety all the day long. A third cough can find nothing to do in your mouth.

If my opinion is of any worth, the fieldfare is the greatest delicacy among birds, the hare among quadrupeds.

If pale beans bubble for you in a red earthenware pot, you can often decline the dinners of sumptuous hosts.

If you are poor now, Aemilianus, you will always be poor. Riches are now given to none but the rich.

If you have any shame, forbear to pluck the beard of a dead lion.

If your slave commits a fault, do not smash his teeth with your fists; give him some of the (hard) biscuit which famous Rhodes has sent you.

If you want him to mourn, you had best leave him nothing.

I have granted you much that you asked: and yet you never cease to ask of me. He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse.

In adversity it is easy to despise life; he is truly brave who can endure a wretched life. [Lat., Rebus in angustis facile est contemnere vitam; Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest.]

In adversity it is easy to despise life; he is truly brave who can endure a writeched life

I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged.

It is as good as second life to be able to look back upon our past life with pleasure

It is easy in adversity to despise death; he has real fortitude who dares to live and be wretched.

It is feeling and force of imagination that make us eloquent.