Juvenal (c.60–c.140,) Latin name Decimus Junius Juvenalis, was the greatest of the Roman satirists. Juvenal’s sixteen verse Satires are a savage and rhetorical denunciation of Roman society under the emperor Domitian—the corruption of society and the idiocies and brutalities of humankind.
Nothing definite is known about Juvenal’s life. His time overlapped with an eventful epoch of Roman history, one in which the failings of the government and the depravities of society were especially grave and evident.
Satires is most bitter against foreigners—Greeks, Syrians, and particularly Jews who, he felt, caused the decline and fall of the old Roman way of life.
Juvenal’s vivid portrayals of Roman life inspired such satirists as Giovanni Boccaccio, Nicolas Boileau, and Lord Byron. The phrase “Juvenalian satire” still represents a critique of contemporary people and institutions in Juvenal’s style.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Juvenal
Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and the circus games.
—Juvenal
Topics: Sports
Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.
—Juvenal
Topics: Guilt
A third heir seldom enjoys what has been dishonestly acquired.
—Juvenal
Topics: Inheritance
Censure pardons the ravens, but rebukes the doves.
—Juvenal
Revenge is sweeter than life itself. So think fools.
—Juvenal
Topics: Revenge
Every great house is full of haughty servants.
—Juvenal
Topics: Servants, Service
It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.
—Juvenal
Topics: Fame
Vice can deceive under the shadow and guise of virtue.
—Juvenal
Topics: Vice
Examples of vicious courses, practised in a domestic circle, corrupt more readily and more deeply, when we behold them in persons of authority.
—Juvenal
Topics: Example
The people long eagerly for just two things. Bread and circuses.
—Juvenal
Topics: People
The smell of profit is clean and sweet, whatever the source.
—Juvenal
Topics: Wealth
Nature and wisdom always say the same.
—Juvenal
Topics: Nature
Who can all sense of others’ ills escape, is but a brute, at best, in human shape.
—Juvenal
All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
—Juvenal
Topics: Knowledge
Every error of the mind is the more conspicuous, and culpable, in proportion to the rank of the person who commits it.
—Juvenal
Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind.
—Juvenal
Topics: Anger, Revenge, Open-mindedness
Indulgence rare to pleasures lendeth zest
—Juvenal
Topics: One liners
All things may be bought in Rome with money.
—Juvenal
Topics: City Life, Cities
No man ever arrived suddenly at the summit of vice.
—Juvenal
Topics: Vice
The love of money grows as the money itself grows.
—Juvenal
Topics: Money
Hold it the greatest sin to prefer existence to honor, and for the sake of life to lose the reasons for living.
—Juvenal
Topics: Existence
What is the use of your pedigrees?
—Juvenal
Topics: Aristocracy
How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.
—Juvenal
Topics: Age, Aging
The short bloom of our brief and narrow life flies far away. While we are calling for flowers and wine and woman, old age is upon us.
—Juvenal
Topics: Age, Aging
When thou art contemplating some base deed, let the presence of thy infant son act as a check on thy headlong course to sin.
—Juvenal
Topics: Parents
It is unmistakable madness to live in poverty only to die rich.
—Juvenal
Topics: Poverty
No one delights more in vengeance than a woman.
—Juvenal
Topics: Vengeance
Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior.
—Juvenal
Topics: Quality
Those who desire to become rich, desire it at once.
—Juvenal
Topics: Patience
Seldom do people discern
Eloquence under a threadbare cloak.
—Juvenal
Topics: Poverty
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