roman quotes

I maintain that though you would often in the fifteenth century have heard the snobbish Roman say, in a would- be off-hand tone,'I am dining with the Borgias tonight,' no Romanever was abletosay,'Idined last night withthe Borgias.'

- Sir (Henry) Max(imilian) Beerbohm
  And Even Now,'Hosts and Guests'.

There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian motherhe, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday.

-Rochdale
^18  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 4, stanza141.

Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet! Would that the Roman people had but one neck!

-Caligula properly GaiusJulius Caesar Germanicus
c.40  AD  Quoted in Suetonius Lives of theTwelve Caesars,'Gaius Caligula', section 30.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

- G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
  'The Rolling English Road'.

Civis Romanus sum. I am a Roman citizen.

-Cicero full name MarcusTullius Cicero
In Verrem 5.147. This is a reference to the tradition that Roman citizens in foreign courts could often expect preferential treatment. The Roman governor Verres, whom Cicero was prosecuting, had ignored this fact altogether, even executing Roman citizens.

The gale, it plies the saplings double, It blows so hard,'twill soon be gone: To-day the Roman and his trouble Are ashes under Uricon.

- A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
  A Shropshire Lad, no.31.

We live half our lives in England†there can't have been anything quite like this sincethe Roman colonists settled in Britain: not the hanging on with one hand, and the other hand full of seas.

- Robin pseudonym of IrisGuiver Wilkinson Hyde
  The Godwits Fly, ch.8.

But then they danced down the street like dingle- dodies, and Ishambled afteras I've beendoing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'

-Jack (John) Kerouac
  On The Road, pt.1, ch.1.

The departed was a 'Roman', and the majority of the town were otherwisebut unionism is stronger than creed. Drink, however, is stronger than unionism; and, whenthehearse presentlyarrived, morethantwo-thirds of the funeral were unable to follow.

- Henry Hertzberg Lawson
  'The Union Buries its Dead', first published in Truth,  Apr.

There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards, and the National Union of Mineworkers.

-Stockton
  In the Observer, 22 Feb.

I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this house†is to give on the question now brought before it†whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.

- HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
  From his four-and-a-half hour Don Pacifico speech, Jun. Don Pacifico was a PortugueseJew resident in Athens, born in Gibraltar and therefore a British subject. In support of his claims for compensation from the Greek government for damage done to his property by a mob, Palmerston sent the British fleet to blockade Piraeus and brought the two countries to the brink of war.

As I look ahead, I am filled with much foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see'the RiverTiber foaming with much blood'.

- (John) Enoch Powell
  Speech at Birmingham on racial tension in Britain, Apr.

Rise not till noon, if life be but a dream, As Greek and Roman poets have exprest: Add good example to so grave a theme, For he who sleeps the longest lives the best.

- Matthew Prior
'Epigram'. (Date unknown. In Matthew Prior: LiteraryWorks, edited by H B Wright and M K Spears, 2 vols,1959.)

Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Grai! Nescioquid maius nascitur Iliade. Make way,Romanwriters, make way,Greeks! Something greater than the Iliad is born.

- Sextus   1c Propertius
OfVirgil's Aeneid. Elegies, bk.2, no.34, l.65^6.

It was manifest to me that there was something in the Roman Catholic religion which made the priests very dear to the people; for I doubt whether in any village in England, had such an accident happened to the rector, all the people would have roused themselves at midnight to wreak their vengeance on the assailant.

- Anthony Trollope
  Argosy,'Father Giles of Ballymoy', May.

Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'e  tait en aucune manie'  re ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This state which was called and is still called the Holy Roman Empire, was not in any way holy, or Roman or an Empire.

-Voltaire pseudonym of  Fran c° ois Marie Arouet
  Essai sur Les Moeurs et l'EŁ  sprit des Nations.