Filter quotes by topic
Famous Catullus Quotes
“In perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale. (Forever and ever, brother, hail and farewell.)”
“My lady's sparrow is dead, the sparrow which was my lady's delight”
“Every one has his faults: but we do not see the wallet on our own backs.”
“Give up wanting to deserve any thanks from anyone, or thinking anybody can be grateful.”
“For the godly poet must be chaste himself, but there is no need for his verses to be so.”
“What women say to lovers, you'll agree, One writes on running water or on air.”
“I hate and love. You ask, perhaps, how can that be? I know not, but I feel the agony.”
“Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill bred it is!”
“Stop wishing to merit anyone's gratitude or thinking that anyone can become grateful.”
“Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more.”
“Away with you, water, destruction of wine!”
“I hate and love. And why, perhaps you’ll ask. I don’t know: but I feel, and I’m tormented.”
“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.”
“I write of youth, of love, and have access by these to sing of cleanly wantonness.”
“Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love. Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus”
“It is difficult to suddenly give up a long love. Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem”
“There is nothing more silly than a silly laugh.”
“There is nothing more foolish than a foolish laugh. Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est”
“To whom do I give my new elegant little book? Cui dono lepidum novum libellum?”
“Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.”
“What a woman says to an eager lover, write it on running water, write it on air.”