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Martial Quotes
102–104
Marcus Valerius Martialis (March, between 38 and 41 CE–between 102 and 104 CE) was born at Bilbilis, a small town in the north-east of Spain (Hispania). He is commonly known in the English speaking world as Martial.
Random Martial quote
106 quotes
You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't say no.
Epigrams (104)
When Fannius from his foe did fly
There are many different voices and languages; but there is but one voice of the peoples when you are declared to be the true "Father of your country."
Let a defect, which is possibly but small, appear undisguised.
Epigrams (104)
Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.
To have nothing is not poverty.
Do you wonder for what reason, Theodorus, notwithstanding your frequent requests and importunities, I have never presented you with my works? I have an excellent reason; it is lest you should present me with yours.
Glory paid to ashes comes too late.
Epigrams (104)
Whoever is not too wise is wise.
Selius affirms, in heav'n no gods there are:
Epigrams (104)
What's this that myrrh doth still smell in thy kiss,
You were constantly, Matho, a guest at my villa at Tivoli. Now you buy it—I have deceived you; I have merely sold you what was already your own.
You invite no man to dinner, Cotta, but your bath-companion; the baths alone provide you with a guest. I was wondering why you had never asked me; now I understand that when naked I displeased you.
Epigrams (104)
When to secure your bald pate from the weather,
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.
Report says that you, Fidentinus, recite my compositions in public as if they were your own. If you allow them to be called mine, I will send you my verses gratis; if you wish them to be called yours, pray buy them, that they may be mine no longer.
When you try to conceal your wrinkles, Polla, with paste made from beans, you deceive yourself, not me. Let a defect, which is possibly but small, appear undisguised. A fault concealed is presumed to be great.
If you wish, Faustinus, a bath of boiling water to be reduced in temperature,—a bath, such as scarcely Julianus could enter,—ask the rhetorician Sabinæus to bathe himself in it. He would freeze the warm baths of Nero.
You manufacture, with the aid of unguents, a false head of hair, and your bald and dirty skull is covered with dyed locks. There is no need to have a hairdresser for your head. A sponge, Phæbus, would do the business better.
In whatever place you meet me, Postumus, you cry out immediately, and your very first words are, "How do you do?" You say this, even if you meet me ten times in one single hour: you, Postumus, have nothing, I suppose, to do.
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