💬 Quotes

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

"Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."

"You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear."

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis."

"Confide in me, then, tell me all about it, and we will figure it out together."

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

"All things change; nothing dies. The spirit wanders, arriving here or there, and taking possession of whatever limbs it pleases, passing from beasts into human bodies, and from our bodies into beasts, but never perishing."

"My mind is set to tell of bodies changed into new forms. You, Gods, since you are the ones who made these arts, inspire my undertaking, and lead my song in one unbroken thread from the very origin of the world down to my own time."

"I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse."

"Happy is he who commands his own life and can say: 'Today I have lived; tomorrow, let the Father spread his canopy over the sky with black clouds or with clear sunshine.'"

"Love cannot be cured by herbs."

"Time, the devourer of all things, and you, envious age, together destroy all things that exist, and little by little consume them in a slow death."

"Sin is not a normal part of man's nature, but a paralysis, a stagnation, a spiritual death which can only be counteracted by the introduction of a new life."

"He was of unusual height, with a fair complexion, handsome limbs, rather full eyes, and a somewhat defective mouth; but this was offset by his general health and vigor."

"Veni, vidi, vici ('I came, I saw, I conquered') — expressions of this sort in his despatches once more showed how effectively he had cut short the Zela campaign."

"Let them hate me, provided they fear me."

"What an artist dies in me!"

"He found a city of brick and left it of marble."

"An emperor ought to die standing."

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do."