Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet.

Sourced

• Qui nolet fieri desidiosus, amet!
  • Let who does not wish to be idle fall in love!
  • Amores, I, ix, 46.

• Sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum.
  • Translation: So I can't live either without you or with you.
  • Amores, III, xi, 39.

• Exitus acta probat.
  • Translation: The result justifies the deed.
  • Variants: The ends justify the means.
  • Heorides (c. 10 BC).

• Resist beginnings; the prescription comes too late when the disease has gained strength by long delays.
  • Remedia Amoris, 91.

• Qui finem quaeris amoris/Cedit amor rebus; res age, tutus eris.
  • Translation: Love yields to business. If you seek a way out of love, be busy; you'll be safe then.
  • Remedia Amoris, 143.

• Poetry comes fine-spun from a mind at peace.
  • Tristia, I, i, 39.

• So long as you are secure you will count many friends; if your life becomes clouded you will be alone.
  • Tristia, I, ix, 5.

• Cura quid expediat prius est quam quid sit honestum
  • It is annoying to be honest to no purpose.
  • Ex Ponto, II, iii, 14.

• Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.
  • Ex Ponto, II, ix, 47.

• The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the falsehood of report.
  • Fasti, IV, 311. Compare: "And the mind conscious of virtue may bring to thee suitable rewards", Virgil, The Aeneid, i, 604.

Ars Amatoria

• They come to see; they come that they themselves may be seen.
  • I, 99. Compare: "And for to see, and eek for to be seie", Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "The Wif of Bathes Prologue", line 6134.

• If you want to be loved, be lovable.
  • Variant: To be loved, be lovable.
  • II, 107.

• Nothing is stronger than habit.
  • Variants: Nothing is more powerful than custom or habit.
    Nothing is stronger than custom.
  • II, 345.

• Intret amicitiae nomine tectus amor.
  • Let love steal in disguised as friendship.
  • Variant: Love will enter cloaked in friendship's name.
  • Context: Cool off; don't let her think you too importunate. Do not betray the hope of too swift a victory; let Love steal in disguised as Friendship. I've often seen a woman thus disarmed, and friendship ripen into love.
  • Ovid, The Art of Love, Book 1, line 720, translated by J. Lewis May in The Love Books of Ovid, 1930.

• Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit, esse putemus.
  • Translation: It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe there are.
  • I, 637.

• Nocte latent mendae, vitioque ignoscitur omni, Horaque formosam quamlibet illa facit.
  • Translation: Blemishes are hid by night and every fault forgiven; darkness makes any woman fair.
  • I, 249-250.

• Many women long for what eludes them, and like not what is offered them.

• Wine gives courage and makes men more apt for passion.

• Pure women are only those who have not been asked.
• Prisca iuvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum gratulor: AA III
  • Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
  • Variant: The good of other times let people state; I think it lucky I was born so late.

Metamorphoses

• Then the omnipotent Father with his thunder made Olympus tremble, and from Ossa hurled Pelion.
  • I. Compare: "Heav'd on Olympus tott'ring Ossa stood; On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood", Alexander Pope, The Odyssey of Homer, Book xi, line 387; "would have you call to mind the strength of the ancient giants, that undertook to lay the high mountain Pelion on the top of Ossa, and set among those the shady Olympus", François Rabelais, Works, book iv. chap. xxxviii.

• Medio tutissimus ibis.
  • Translation: You will be safest in the middle.
  • II, 137.

• Causa latet, vis est notissima
  • Translation: The cause is hidden, but the result is well known.
  • IV, 287.

• Fas est et ab hoste doceri.
• Translation: We can learn even from our enemies.
  • Variant: You can learn from anyone, even your enemy.
  • IV, 428.

• Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor.
  • Translation: I see and approve better things, but follow worse.
  • VII, 20.

• Sunt superis sua iura
  • Translation: The gods have their own rules.
  • IX, 500.

• It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal soul.
  • XIII. Compare: "I must be measured by my soul: The mind's the standard of the man", Isaac Watts, Horæ Lyricæ, Book ii, "False Greatness".

• Tempus edax rerum
  • Translation: Time, the devourer of all things.
  • Variant: Time is the devourer of all things.
  • XV, 234.

• In the winter season,
  For seven days of calm, Alcyone
  Broods over her nest on the surface of the waters
  While the sea-waves are quiet. Through this time
  Aeolus keeps his winds at home, and ocean
  Is smooth for his descendants' sake.
  • As translated by Rolfe Humphries.

Metamorphoses

• Latin text with English translation
  • Ovid Illlustrated: The Renaissance Reception of Ovid in Image and Text (A an elaborate environment allowing simulanteous access to Latin text, English translations, commentary from multiple sources along with wood cut illustrations by Virgil Solis.)
• Latin text
  • University of Virginia: Metamorphoses
• English translation
  • By A. S. Kline
    • Poetry in Translation: Ovid: Metamorphoses. (Enhanced viewer with links and notes. Can be downloaded in different formats.)
    • Mythology: Metamorphoses
  • By Rolfe Humphries
    • Metamorphoses Ovid Translated by Rolfe Humphries
  • By Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden et al., 1717
    • Internet Classics Archive: Ovid's Metamorphoses
    • Globusz Publishing: Ovid's Metamorphoses
  • By Others:
    • Elizabethan Authors: Ovid's Metamorphoses, trans. by Arthur Golding, 1567.
    • TextKit: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books I–IV, trans. Rev. Dr. Giles, a learning translation/crib in PDF graphic format.
• Insight and commentary
  • The Ovid Project: Metamorphising the Metamorphoses (Illustrations by Johann Whilhelm Baur (1600–1640) and anonymous illustrations from George Sandy's edition of 1640.)
  • A Honeycomb for Aphrodite by A. S. Kline
  • Ovid's Metamorphoses, An introduction and commentary by Larry A. Brown.
  • An Analytical Onomasticon to the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Concordance and narrative index.)