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Phaedrus Quotes
Gaius Julius Phaedrus (c. 15 BC – c. 50 AD) was a Roman fabulist, by birth a Macedonian and lived in the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius and Claudius.
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Jupiter has placed upon us two wallets. Hanging behind each person's back he has given one full of his own faults; in front he has hung a heavy one full of other people's.
A coward boasting of his courage may deceive strangers, but he is a laughing-stock to those who know him.
Whoever has fallen from his former high estate is in his calamity the scorn even of the base.
Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves.
What wilt thou do to thyself, who hast added insult to injury?
True it is that covetousness is rich, modesty starves.
The poor, trying to imitate the powerful, perish.
It is a sin for a plebeian to grumble in public.
For life is nearer every day to death.
That it is unwise to be heedless ourselves while we are giving advice to others, I will show in a few lines.
In a change of government the poor change nothing but the name of their masters.
A learned man always has riches within himself.
Things are not always what they seem.
A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?"
Come of it what may, as Sinon said.
Jupiter has loaded us with a couple of wallets: the one, filled with our own vices, line he has placed at our backs; the other, lie heavy with those of others, he has hung before.
A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.
Ill have I brook’d that nobler foes
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