Catullus Quotes

Away with you, water, destruction of wine!

Give up wanting to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking anybody can be grateful.

Who now travels that dark path from whose bourne they say no one returns.
[Lat., Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
Illue unde negant redire quemquam.]

It is difficult to lay aside a confirmed passion.

Brother, hello and good-bye. Frater, ave atque vale

What a woman says to an eager lover, write it on running water, write it on air.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love. Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus

But you shall not escape my iambics.

I write of youth, of love, and have access by these to sing of cleanly wantonness.

I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more.

Ah, what is more blessed than to put cares away, when the mind lays by its burden, and tired with labor of far travel we have come to our own home and rest on the couch we longed for? This it is which alone is worth all these toils.

For the godly poet must be chaste himself, but there is no need for his verses to be so.

Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.

I hate and I love. Perchance you ask why I do that. I know not, but I feel that I do and I am tortured.
[Lat., Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.]

There is nothing more foolish than a foolish laugh. Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est

We see not our own backs.

It is difficult to suddenly give up a long love. Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem

Nothing is more silly than silly laughter.

Every one has his faults: but we do not see the wallet on our own backs.

I hate and I love. And if you ask me how, I do not know: I only feel it, and I am torn in two.

Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill bred it is!

What woman says to fond lover should be written on air or the swift water.
[Lat., Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,
In vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.]

The confounding of all right and wrong, in wild fury, has averted from us the gracious favor of the gods.