Life is not merely to be alive, but to be well.Collection: Health
Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have sting, honey, and brevity.Collection: Should Have
Wine and women bring misery.Collection: Wine
There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.Collection: Men
It is not he who forms idols in gold or marble that makes them gods, but he who kneels before them.Collection: Idols
Givers of great dinners know few enemies.Collection: Enemy
Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.Collection: Life
It is feeling and force of imagination that make us eloquent.Collection: Imagination
Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.Collection: Caring
My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.Collection: Life
To be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice.Collection: Past
He writes nothing whose writings are not read.Collection: Education
He who weighs his burdens, can bear them.Collection: Bears
Genuine is the sorrow endured without anyone else knowing about it.Collection: Knowing
The face that cannot smile is never fair.Collection: Faces
Be merry if you are wise.Collection: Wise
A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.Collection: Life
Whoever makes great presents, expects great presents in return.Collection: Return
Virtue extends our days: he lives two lives who relives his past with pleasure.Collection: Life
Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none.Collection: Giving
Spare the person but lash the vice.Collection: Vices
You are sad in the midst of every blessing. Take care that Fortune does not observe--or she will call you ungrateful.Collection: Blessing
Some good, some so-so, and lots plain bad: that's how a book of poems is made, my Friend.Collection: Friendship
That which prevents disagreeable flies from feeding on your repast, was once the proud tail of a splendid bird.Collection: Bird
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.Collection: Two
It is to live twice when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.Collection: Past
I'm what I seem; not any dyer gave, But nature dyed this colour that I have.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Lakes
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.Collection: Dinner
One genius has made many clever artists.Collection: Clever
Such are thou and I: but what I am thou canst not be; what thou art any one of the multitude may be.Collection: Art
The swifter hand doth the swift words outrun: Before the tongue hath spoke the hand hath done.Collection: Hands
Be not too thick with anybody; your joys will be fewer, and so will pains.Collection: Pain
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?Collection: Book
See, how the liver is swollen larger than a fat goose! In amazement you will exclaim: Where could this possibly grow?Collection: Eating
Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.Collection: Individuality
He who prefers to give Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half.Collection: Giving
Every bird that upwards swings Bears the Cross upon its wings.Collection: Swings
Glory comes too late when we are nought but ashes.Collection: Ashes
The swan murmurs sweet strains with a flattering tongue, itself the singer of its own dirge.Collection: Sweet
Epigrams need no crier, but are content with their own tongue.Collection: Needs
No man is quick enough to enjoy life.Collection: Life
Red-haired, black-lipped, club-footed, and blink-eyed; if you're a good man, you're a wonder!Collection: Men
I know all that better than my own name.Collection: Knowledge
No hero to me is the man who, by easy shedding of his blood, purchases fame: my hero is he who, without death, can win praise.Collection: Hero