The Golden Ass Quotes
"What I propose in this Milesian discourse is to string together for you a series of different stories and to charm your ears, kind reader, with amusing gossip."
"But who is this? Attic Hymettus, the Isthmus of Corinth, and Spartan Taenarus, fruitful lands immortalized in yet more fruitful books, these make up my ancient ancestry."
"It is not only our own people that she can make fall madly in love with her, but the Indians, the Ethiopians – both lots – even the Antipodeans."
"When one of her lovers was unfaithful to her, with a single word she turned him into a beaver."
"Another time she changed a lawyer who appeared against her in court into a ram, and it's as a ram that he now pleads his cases."
"This sort of thing kept happening, and a lot of people suffered at her hands, so that public indignation grew and spread."
"So she was appeased and let them all off, except for the man who had convened the public meeting."
"Him she whisked off at dead of night, with his whole house – walls, foundations, the ground it stood on."
"Since the houses there were too closely packed to allow room for another one, she simply dumped it outside the town gates and decamped."
"Give me your ear, reader: you will enjoy yourself."
"I was on my way to Thessaly – for on my mother's side our family goes back there."
"It's not blood but piss you were drenched with."
"As for me, I remained where I was, grovelling on the floor, fainting, naked, cold and drenched in piss, just like a new-born child."
"You see before you a man of iron, who never sleeps, sharper-eyed than Lynceus or Argus, eyes all over him."
"I too had a dream, that my throat was cut; I had a pain there, and I thought the heart was plucked out of me – and even now I feel faint."
"There he is, sister Panthia, my beloved Endymion, my Ganymede, who by night and day has played fast and loose with my tender youth."
"Do you think you’re here to enjoy yourself? You would do better to remember where you are and look sad and tearful."
"My dear Lucius, I implore you, by the stars of heaven, by the infernal powers, by the natural elements, by the silences of night and the sanctuaries of Coptos, and by the risings of Nile and the secrets of Memphis and the sistrums of Pharos."
"There’s a gang of young idiots of good family disturbing the public peace just now."
"You can’t escape justice, but at least you can choose your own death."
"I thought the very stones I stumbled against must be petrified human beings."
"This is what I repeatedly warned of in my care for you."
"I must go halves with a mortal girl in the honour due to my godhead."
"I'll see to it that she regrets this beauty of hers to which she has no right."
"You cannot call those wicked women sisters any longer."
"Every man jack of them emerged with a weapon of some kind."
"I must summon up a man’s spirit, boldly renounce my empty remnants of hope."
"I’ll see to it that you’re sorry for these games."
"You have no idea where he comes from; only at night, obeying his voice, do I submit to this husband of unknown condition."
"It is by the name of Venus alone that I am destroyed."
"The open-hearted reed... showed the unfortunate Psyche the way to safety."
"Psyche eagerly quickened her pace towards the mountain-top."
"But the suffering of this innocent soul did not escape the august eyes of Providence."
"Threatening her with yet worse outrages, she addressed Psyche with a deadly smile."
"Then indeed Psyche knew that her last hour had come."
"‘Listen to me. Not far from here is Sparta, a famous city of Greece.'"
"‘So this far-sighted tower accomplished its prophetic task.'"
"Meanwhile Cupid, eaten up with love, looking ill."
"‘In spite of the fact, dear boy, that you have never paid me the respect decreed me by the gods in council.'"
"Then, turning to Venus, 'Daughter,' he said, 'do not be downcast.'"
"Thus was Psyche married to Cupid with all proper ceremony."
"That then was the tale told by the drunken garrulous old woman."
"‘How long,’ said one of them, ‘are we going to go on wasting fodder on this clapped-out ass?'"
"And with a vigorous pull I broke my halter and took off at a gallop."
"‘You too will join the catalogue of the Wonders of Old, and your true example will lead us to believe.'"
"It is your eyes that have shot through mine to the depths of my heart and kindled a fierce blaze in my inmost being."
"I had been taught that medicine had been invented to save life, not destroy it."
"The opportunity is here – you cannot refuse. What nobody knows about to all intents and purposes hasn’t happened."
"But as I grew confident of avoiding detection I began to wolf down all the particularly choice bits."
"Every time I pulled myself back in an effort to go easy on her, she would thrust violently forward in her frenzy."
"What with the sword-cuts and the flogging, the ground was awash with the contaminated blood of these creatures."
"For God’s sake, isn’t the diagnosis obvious to anybody who’s taken a course in the school of Venus, even if he doesn’t have a medical diploma, when you see somebody on fire without a temperature?"
"If you’re dissatisfied with our partnership, we can go on being brothers in everything else, but give up this sharing arrangement."
"He was so startled by the commotion that I totally jettisoned all my plans."
"Her husband’s father, having to be away on a journey, left instructions with his wife, her mother-in-law, who was pregnant, that if the child turned out to be a member of the weaker sex, it should be put to death at birth."
"The young man, a model son and brother, behaved with scrupulous and dutiful respect towards both his mother and his sister."
"Admirable and entirely innocent as these arrangements were, they could not escape the deadly malevolence of Fortune."
"This admirable wife, goaded to inhuman frenzy by lustful fury, had her husband’s sister stripped naked and flogged her to within an inch of her life."
"The brother could not come to terms with his sister’s death, so pitiful and so little deserved."
"In the end, however, she allowed him to wear her down by his repeated pleas and entreaties and was reluctantly prevailed on to let him go."
"The young man had maintained his grip on life no longer than the doctor, but expired in the same manner amid the feigned tears and pretended lamentations of his wife."
"After his funeral and the interval of a few days in which the last respects are paid to the dead, the doctor’s widow appeared to claim payment for the two deaths."
"She had a small daughter by her murdered husband. This child was by law her father’s heir, a fact that the woman bitterly resented."
"Knowing that a mother stood to inherit from a child prematurely deceased, she showed herself just such a parent as she had been a wife."
"Fortune often saves an undoomed man if his courage holds."
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it."
"Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
"Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people."
"It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace."
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."