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.
Martial Quotes
Are you astonished Aulus, that our friend Fabullinus is so frequently deceived? A good man has always something to learn in regard to fraud.
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 puff the poets of other days, The living you deplore. Spare me the accolade: your praise Is not worth dying for.
You do not publish your own verses, Laelius; you criticize mine. Pray cease to criticize mine, or else publish your own.
When the blandishments of life are gone, the coward creeps to death – the brave lives on.
Fannius, as he was fleeing from the enemy, put himself to death. Isn’t this, I ask, madness to die for fear of dying?
Milo abroad, one wonder all declare: His lands lie fallow yet his wife can bear. The contrast strange, some deep diviners scan: She has tho’ they have not, a husbandman.
Be content to seem what you really are.
Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
