Ovid > Quotes

“Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.”
― Ovid

“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.”
― Ovid, Heroides

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
― Ovid

“Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim. (Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.)”
― Ovid

“I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust, I forgot to ask that they be years of youth. ”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Fas est ab hoste doceri.
One should learn even from one's enemies.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit (everything changes, nothing perishes).”
― Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses

“Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”
"Be patient and tough; one day this pain will be useful to you.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“I am the poet of the poor, because I was poor when I loved; since I could not give gifts, I gave words.”
― Ovid

“Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.”
― Ovid

“Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you.”
― Publius Ovidius Naso, The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

“I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.”
― Ovid

“Love will enter cloaked in friendship's name.”
― Ovid

“When he, whoever of the gods it was, had thus arranged in order and resolved that chaotic mass, and reduced it, thus resolved, to cosmic parts, he first moulded the Earth into the form of a mighty ball so that it might be of like form on every side … And, that no region might be without its own forms of animate life, the stars and divine forms occupied the floor of heaven, the sea fell to the shining fishes for their home, Earth received the beasts, and the mobile air the birds … Then Man was born:… though all other animals are prone, and fix their gaze upon the earth, he gave to Man an uplifted face and bade him stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Anything cracked will shatter at a touch.”
― Ovid

“It's a kindness that the mind can go where it wishes.”
― Publius Ovidius Naso, The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.”
― Ovid

“God himself helps those who dare.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“If you would be loved, be lovable”
― Ovid

“Every lover is a soldier.”
― Ovid, Amores

“Nothing is stronger than habit.”
― Ovid

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.”
― Ovid

“Saepe creat molles aspera spina rosas" - "Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses”
― Ovid

“Love is the force that leaves you colorless”
― Ovidio, Metamorfosis

“In our play we reveal what kind of people we are”
― Ovid

“I flee who chases me and chase who flees me.”
― Ovid

“Dignity and love do not blend well, nor do they continue long together. ”
― Ovid