Metamorphoses Quotes

“I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust, I forgot to ask that they be years of youth. ”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Fas est ab hoste doceri.
One should learn even from one's enemies.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”
"Be patient and tough; one day this pain will be useful to you.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit (everything changes, nothing perishes).”
― Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“When he, whoever of the gods it was, had thus arranged in order and resolved that chaotic mass, and reduced it, thus resolved, to cosmic parts, he first moulded the Earth into the form of a mighty ball so that it might be of like form on every side … And, that no region might be without its own forms of animate life, the stars and divine forms occupied the floor of heaven, the sea fell to the shining fishes for their home, Earth received the beasts, and the mobile air the birds … Then Man was born:… though all other animals are prone, and fix their gaze upon the earth, he gave to Man an uplifted face and bade him stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“God himself helps those who dare.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Love is the force that leaves you colorless”
― Ovidio, Metamorfosis

“...et ignotas animum dimittit in artes, naturamque nouat. (to arts unknown he bends his wits, and alters nature.)”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.
But since, o gods, you were the source of these
bodies becoming other bodies, breathe
your breath into my book of changes: may
the song I sing be seamless as its way
weaves from the world's beginning to our day.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“And besides, we lovers fear everything”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“what we have been, or now are, we shall not be tomorrow”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Water belongs to us all. Nature did not make the sun one person's property, nor air, nor water, cool and clear.”
― Michael Simpson, The Metamorphoses of Ovid

“My vengeance is my guilt”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Fortune resists half-hearted prayers.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.
And he sets his mind to unknown arts.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“When all the other animals, downcast looked upon the earth, he [Prometheus] gave a face raised on high to man, and commanded him to see the sky and raise his high eyes to the stars.”
― Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses

“Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne,
Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said:
'Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power,
Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all,
And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart
Of the great god to whom the last lot fell
When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery
Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove,
Subdues the ocean's deities and him,
Even him, who rules the ocean's deities.
Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too
Extend your mother's empire and your own....?

Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened
His quiver of all his thousand arrows
Selected one, the sharpest and the surest,
The arrow most obedient to the bow,
And bent the pliant horn against his knee
And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto's heart.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“You will go most safely by the middle way.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Even as a cow she was lovely.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“And now the measure of my song is done:
The work has reached its end; the book is mine,
None shall unwrite these words: nor angry Jove,
Nor war, nor fire, nor flood,
Nor venomous time that eats our lives away.
Then let that morning come, as come it will,
When this disguise I carry shall be no more,
And all the treacherous years of life undone,
And yet my name shall rise to heavenly music,
The deathless music of the circling stars.
As long as Rome is the Eternal City
These lines shall echo from the lips of men,
As long as poetry speaks truth on earth,
That immortality is mine to wear.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“She made up prayers and said them,
Worshipping unknown gods with unknown singing,
Her customary magic, which would cover
The white moon’s face and darken the sun with cloud.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“for no god may undo what another god has done...”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Right it is to be taught even by the enemy.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“I see and approve of the better, but I follow the worse.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“The god of Delos, proud in victory,
Saw Cupid draw his bow's taut arc, and said:
'Mischievous boy, what are a brave man's arms
To you? That gear becomes my shoulders best.
My aim is sure; I wound my enemies,
I wound wild beasts; my countless arrows slew
But now the bloated Python, whose vast coils
Across so many acres spread their blight.
You and your loves! You have your torch to light them!Let that content you; never claim my fame!'


And Venus' son replied: 'Your bow, Apollo,
May vanquish all, but mine shall vanquish you.
As every creature yields to power divine,
So likewise shall your glory yield to mine.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Nothing retains its original form, but Nature, the goddess of all renewal, keeps altering one shape into another. Nothing at all in the world can perish, you have to believe me; things merely vary and change their appearance. What we call birth
is merely becoming a different entity; what we call death is ceasing to be the same. Though the parts may possibly shift
their position from here to there, the wholeness in nature is constant.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses