Virgil (70 BCE–19 BCE,) born Publius Vergilius Maro, was a great Roman Latin poet. He set the archetype of a poet for whom poetry is both a way of life and a means for the deepest individual, cultural, and spiritual inquiry. Virgil’s grand epic, the Aeneid, is one of the most venerated and influential literary works in Western cultural history.
Virgil was born in Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy. His father was a landlord and a farmer, prominent enough to provide Virgil with a solid education in Cremona, Milan, and finally Rome, where he arrived at the age of 17. He intended to become a lawyer but was too introverted to speak publicly. He also missed the Italian countryside, so he returned to his family’s farm and wrote poetry.
Virgil’s poetic triumph is expressed in three monumental works. His earliest, The Eclogues, celebrated idyllic rustic life and contrasted the present with the natural and the simple life. Virgil’s description of the rural landscape became popular because it reminded everyone of a simple time before a series of civil wars.
At a time when civil wars were tearing down Rome, the regime asked Virgil to write a poem that would influence Romans, who had left the countryside to return home and become farmers again. The Georgics, considered by many his finest work, is a didactic poem about grain production, trees, animal husbandry, and beekeeping. Although the poems formed a practical handbook, they were also entertaining and full of nationalistic paean conveying the love of the land and the lasting wisdom of rural values.
Roman Emperor Augustus was impressed with Virgil’s work and provided him a generous stipend to live on for the rest of his life, which he spent writing. Virgil wrote his epic poem, The Aeneid, based on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and presented the soldier Aeneas, traveling home from the Trojan war to found a new city that would develop into Rome.
Virgil wrote The Aeneid first in prose, and then meticulously transformed it into metered poetry. The poem was unfinished when Virgil died—to be precise, it is almost complete except for a few metrically incomplete lines of verse. The Aeneid is celebrated for its patriotic goal and its probing of the inner meaning of heroism and man’s fate.
Before Virgil died, he instructed that the poem should be destroyed. It is believed that Emperor Augustus himself overrode Virgil’s final desire and saved the Aeneid for posterity. It became the heart of the Roman school curriculum and has been in print for over 2,000 years.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Virgil
We may be masters of our every lot by bearing it.
—Virgil
Topics: Resolve, Perseverance, Endurance
Fortune favors the brave.
—Virgil
Fame hides her head among the clouds.
—Virgil
Topics: Fame
It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air – there’s the rub, the task.
—Virgil
Topics: Death
Fear is proof of a low born soul.
—Virgil
Topics: Fear
Mind moves matter.
—Virgil
Topics: Mind, The Mind
Trust not to much to appearances.
—Virgil
Topics: Appearance
Perhaps one day this too will be pleasant to remember.
—Virgil
Topics: Memory, Resilience
The greatest wealth is health.
—Virgil
Topics: Health
Everyone is dragged on by their favorite pleasure.
—Virgil
Topics: Pleasure
Press no further with hate.
—Virgil
Topics: Hate, Hatred
Your descendants shall gather your fruits.
—Virgil
Topics: Legacy
A fickle and changeful thing is a woman ever.
—Virgil
Topics: Women
Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.
—Virgil
Topics: Fear
Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor?
—Virgil
Topics: Defeat
Go on and increase in valor for this is the path to immortality.
—Virgil
Topics: Valor, Bravery
Roman, remember that you shall rule the nations by your authority, for this is to be your skill, to make peace the custom, to spare the conquered, and to wage war until the haughty are brought low.
—Virgil
Blessings on your young courage, boy; that’s the way to the stars.
—Virgil
Topics: Advice
The gates of Hell are open night and day; smooth the descent, and easy is the way: but, to return, and view the cheerful skies; in this, the task and mighty labor lies.
—Virgil
Topics: Hell
Enter on the way of training while the spirits in youth are still pliable.
—Virgil
Topics: Learning
Curst greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power has caused.
—Virgil
Topics: Greed, Gold
Fortune helps the brave.
—Virgil
Topics: Courage
Command large fields, but cultivate small ones.
—Virgil
Impotent fury rages powerless and to no purpose.
—Virgil
Topics: Anger
It manus in gyrum; paullatim singula viresDeperdunt proprias; color est E pluribus unus. Spins round the stirring hand; lose by degreesTheir separate powers the parts, and comes at lastFrom many several colors one that rules.
—Virgil
Happy the man who has learned the cause of things and has put under his feet all fear, inexorable fate, and the noisy strife of the hell of greed.
—Virgil
Topics: Attitude, Happiness
Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.
—Virgil
Topics: Destiny
Age carries all things away, even the mind.
—Virgil
Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.
—Virgil
Topics: Evil
Trust one who has tried.
—Virgil
Topics: Trust
Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.”
—Virgil
Topics: Death and Dying, Death, Carpe-diem
They can, because they think they can.
—Virgil
Topics: Belief, Optimism, Positive Attitudes
Knowing sorrow well, I learn to succor the distressed.
—Virgil
Topics: Kindness, Compassion, Service
The Britons are quite separated from all the world.
—Virgil
Topics: Nationalism, Nation, Nationality, Nationalities
Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.
—Virgil
Topics: Risk
The noblest motive is the public good.
—Virgil
Topics: Patriotism, God
Trust not the horse, O Trojans. Be it what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts.
—Virgil
Topics: Charity, Giving
I too must attempt a way by which I can raise myself above the ground, and soar triumphant through the lips of men.
—Virgil
Topics: Ambition
Endure, and preserve yourselves for better things.
—Virgil
Topics: Resolve, Perseverance, Endurance
From a single crime know the nation.
—Virgil
Topics: Crime, Criminals
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