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Plautus Quotes
254 BC–184 BC
Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC – 184 BC), born at Sarsina, Emilia-Romagna, was a comic playwright in the time of the Roman Republic. The years of his life are uncertain, but his plays were first produced between about 205 BC and 184 BC.
Also known as: Truculentus
Random Plautus quote
127 quotes
For what is idly got is idly spent.
Practice yourself what you preach.
Let deeds correspond with words.
Smooth words in place of gifts.
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.
Each man reaps on his own farm.
What I've given I wish I hadn't given; what's left, I won't give.
No one can be so welcome a guest that he will not become an annoyance when he has stayed three continuous days in a friend's house.
No man has perpetual good fortune.
Keep what goods the Gods provide you.
You are seeking a knot in a bulrush.
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)
For enemies carry about slander not in the form in which it took its rise. * * * The scandal of men is everlasting; even then does it survive when you would suppose it to be dead.
The gods play games with men as balls.
No man is wise enough by himself.
Conquer by means of true virtue.
According as men thrive, their friends are true; if their affairs go to wreck, their friends sink with them. Fortune finds friends.
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)
I count him lost, who is lost to shame.
Who wishes to give himself an abundance of business let him equip these two things, a ship and a woman. For no two things involve more business, if you have begun to fit them out. Nor are these two things ever sufficiently adorned, nor is any excess of adornment enough for them.
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