Petronius > Quotes

“Can't you see that I'm only advising you to beg yourself not to be so dumb?”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“We trained hard—but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
― Petronius Arbiter

“Nothing is falser than people's preconceptions and ready-made opinions; nothing is sillier than their sham morality...”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Everyone will find what he's looking for. Nothing pleases everyone: this man gathers thorns, that one roses.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.


For with my own eyes I saw Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the young boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?', she replied, 'I want to die.”
― Petronius

“I believe that school makes complete fools of our young men, because they see and hear nothing of ordinary life there”
― Petronius

“The imagination will not perform until it has been flooded by a vast torrent of reading. - 27-66 AD”
― Petronius

“What power has law where only money rules?”
― Petronius

“Serva me, servabo te”
― Petronius Arbiter

“I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, Sibyl, what do you want? she replied I want to die.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis of the Divine Claudius

“Outward looks are not enough,
Beauty is not common stuff-
Of merriment it is compact,
Playful grace in every act,
Witty laughter, laughing wit:
These are things that go with it,
These surpass the simple graces
In beautiful and silly faces.
Art is beauty; and I say:
Take the lovely fool away!-
If she strips from foot to head
And doesn't ask me into bed.”
― Petronius

“I said everything that a painful swelling in one's libido tells one to say.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“No man on earth may look on forbidden things as you have done and escape punishment. Especially here, a land so infested with divinity that one might meet a god more easily than a man.”
― Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon

“utres inflati ambulamus. minoris quam muscae sumus, muscae tamen aliquam uirtutem habent, nos non pluris sumus quam bullae.”
― Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon

“After all, I was once like you are, but being the right sort I got where I am.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Wine there! Wine and dice! Tomorrow's fears shall fools alone benumb! By the ear Death pulls me. 'Live!' he whispers softly, 'Live! I come.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“I myself have seen with my own eyes the sybil hanging in a bottle at Cumae. And when the little boys asked her "Sybil, what do you want?" she said, "I want to die.”
― the Satyricon of Petronius

“One good turns deserve another”
― Petronius

“The trader trusts his fortune to the sea and takes his gains,
     The warrior, for his deeds, is girt with gold;
The wily sycophant lies drunk on purple counterpanes,
     Young wives must pay debauchees or they're cold.
But solitary, shivering, in tatters Genius stands
     Invoking a neglected art, for succor at its hands.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“What the Gods want happens soon”
― Petronius

“All those who are left legacies in my will…will obtain my bequests only on one condition, that they cut my body in pieces and eat it before the eyes of the citizens…You must merely shield your eyes, and imagine that what you have swallowed is not human entrails but ten million sesterces.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“It's the old headpiece that makes a man, the rest is all rubbish.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Nemo nostrum solide natus est.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Es gibt nichts Verfehlteres als die unsinnige Voreingenommenheit der Menschen und nichts Dümmeres als gleisnerische Sittenstrenge.”
― Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon

“Kind Providence unto our needs has tempered its decrees
     And met our wants, our carping plaints to still
Green herbs, and berries hanging on their rough and brambly sprays
     Suffice our hunger's gnawing pangs to kill.
What fool would thirst upon a river's brink? Or stand and freeze
     In icy blasts, when near a cozy fire?
The law sits armed outside the door, adulterers to seize,
     The chaste bride, guiltless, gratifies desire.
All Nature lavishes her wealth to meet our just demands;
But, spurred by lust of pride, we stop at naught to gain our ends!”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Every man shall find his own desire; there is no one thing which pleases all: one man gathers thorns and another roses.”
― Petronius

“Just as in dicing, Fortune smiles or lowers; When good luck beckons, then your friend his gleeful service gives But basely flies when ruin o'er you towers.”
― Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon

“So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Among the difficulties which beset the path of the conscientious translator, a sense of his own unworthiness must ever take precedence; but another, scarcely less disconcerting, is the likelihood of misunderstanding some allusion which was perfectly familiar to the author and his public, but which, by reason of its purely local significance, is obscure and subject to the misinterpretation and emendation of a later generation.”
― Petronius, The Satyricon

“Dinner with Trimalchio as explained on Angelfire.com

Fragment 35

The next course is not as grand as Encolpius expects but it is novel. Trimalchio has a course made that represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac, again showing his superstitious nature. Over each sign of the zodiac is food that is connected with the subject of the sign of the zodiac.

Ares the ram - chickpeas (the ram is a sign of virility and chickpeas represent the penis in satire)

Taurus the bull - a beefsteak . Beef is from cattle and the bull represents strength.

Gemini (The heavenly twins) - Testicles and kidneys (since they come in pairs!)

Cancer the Crab- a garland (which looks like pincers) but we also learn later (fragment 39 ) that the is Trimalchios sign and by putting a garland over his sign he is honouring it.

Leo the Lion - an African fig since lions were from Africa.

Virgo the Virgin - a young sows udder , symbol of innocence.

Libra the scales - A pair of balance pans with a different dessert in each!

Scorpio - a sea scorpion

Sagittarius the archer - a sea bream with eyespots, you need a good eye to practise archery.

Capricorn- a lobster

Aquarius the water carrier - a goose i.e. water fowl.

Pisces the fish - two mullets (fish!)

In the middle of the dish is a piece of grass and on the grass a honey comb. We are told by Trimalchio himself that this represents mother earth (fragment 39) who is round like a grassy knoll or an egg and has good things inside her like a honey comb.”
― Petronius, Satyricon & Fragments: Latin Text