Ancient Roman Sayings

#1. There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused.

Edmund Burke

#2. The ancient Roman code belongs to a class of which almost every civilised nation in the world can show a sample, and which, so far as the Roman and Hellenic worlds were concerned, were largely diffused over them at epochs not widely distant from one another.

Henry James Sumner Maine

#3. I kept ... returning to the (ancient Roman) wall paintings with their veiled melancholy and elegant plasticity.

William Baziotes

#4. PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.

Ambrose Bierce

#5. His straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

#6. There can be very powerful releases of energy that can catch you off guard until you have a better sense of what you are doing.

Frederick Lenz

#7. To think you can just go out and help people and somehow get a better life is not reincarnation as I know it. A better life comes from being happy and inner realizations. Now if helping others adds to that, well then, it's great.

Frederick Lenz

#8. The Hindus have worshipped from ancient times the baby Krishna in the arms of Virgin Devaki just as the Roman catholics [sic] worship Madona [sic] with baby Christ.

Swami Abhedananda

#9. It made the woman feel like a thousand seas had come together from all worlds, like faraway lands had been bridged together, and the vastness of the known and the unknown were somehow easier to comprehend.

Cristina M. Sburlea

#10. Spanish rain,
A maiden's dress,
Apothecary pills
And ancient thrills;
Melancholy kills
A girl's caress.

Roman Payne

#11. We still haven't gotten the message; we still don't see that it's bad. And then we copy everything about their [Roman Empire] structure. I mean Paul Bremer was the proconsul of Iraq. We're still using ancient terminology, we still have Senators and we have an Emperor, almost.

Immortal Technique

#12. Ahimsa and Truth are my two lungs. I cannot live without them.

Mahatma Gandhi

#13. Athol Fugard became famous as a playwright, so although 'Tsotsi' the book was written in the '60s, it was only published in the '80s. It was then optioned pretty much every year by producers. I think the problem was that holding onto its period setting made it very hard to get finance.

Gavin Hood

#14. He wanted to cut the man's throat. Never in his life had he been so overpowered by such a desire to kill someone. It was a strange feeling, sweet and driven. In one leap he could be on him. His legs wanted to do it; they trembled with anticipation.

Robert Karjel

#15. The failure of the roman system to furnish decent minimal standards for the mass of people was a fundamental cause of instability, both political and economic.

H.J. Haskell

#16. Do battle with the enemy. Do battle with your fears. Build your courage to fight what's holding you back, what's keeping you from your goals and dreams. Be courageous in your life and in your pursuit of the things you want and the person you want to become.

Jim Rohn

#17. It's no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the YankeeStadium of ancient times.

Red Smith

#18. a poker-rectumed pillar of the establishment [Marcus Corvinus on a Roman Senator]

David Wishart

#19. After a war of about 40 years, undertaken by the most stupid [Claudius], maintained by the most dissolute [Nero], and terminated by the most timid [Domitian] of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island [of Britain] submitted to the Roman yoke.

Edward Gibbon

#20. The Roman state stands by ancient customs, and its manhood.

Quintus Ennius

#21. The United States is now relearning an ancient lesson, dating back to the Roman Empire. Brutalizing an enemy only serves to brutalize the army ordered to do it. Torture corrodes the mind of the torturer.

James Risen

#22. I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens.

Eric Idle

#23. We should not allow our personal values to erode, even if others think we are peculiar.

James E. Faust

#24. The Germanic invasions destroyed neither the Mediterranean unity of the ancient world, nor what may be regarded as the truly essential features of the Roman culture as it still existed in the 5th century, at a time when there was no longer an Emperor in the West.

Henri Pirenne

#25. Even during the period when Rome lost much of her ancient prestige, an Indian traveler observed that trade all over the world was operated with the aid of Roman gold coins which were accepted and admired everywhere.

Paul Einzig

#26. And I really wanted a driver's license. I was 43, had my learner's permit and had failed the test once already - but that was in Riverhead, on Long Island.

Suzanne Vega

#27. I get out, I get out of all your boxes. I get out, you can't hold me in these chains. I'll get out. Father free me from this bondage. Knowin' my condition is the reason I must change

Lauryn Hill

#28. Roman political culture's extraordinary openness and willingness to incorporate outsiders, which set it apart from every other ancient Western society that we know.

Mary Beard

#29. I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations.

Tim Blake Nelson

#30. Come in here and take notes for me." Solara didn't move.
A rustling of blankets sounded from the other room, followed by a heavy sigh. "Stay there," he grumbled. "I'll get dressed and come to you. But for future reference, anyone who stinks like a toolshed is safe from my advances.

Melissa Landers

#31. For them, it was just an ordinary miracle.

Robert Harris

#32. A man who had the legions of the east marching at his back could be bred by a donkey on a mule and the senate would have no choice but to accept him.

M.C. Scott

#33. Oblige me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history.

James Joyce