Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Virgil (Roman Poet)

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. TheAeneid 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

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

Press no further with hate.
—Virgil
Topics: Hatred, Hate

The wavering multitude is divided into opposite factions.
—Virgil
Topics: Unity

Command large fields, but cultivate small ones.
—Virgil

Mind moves matter.
—Virgil
Topics: Mind, The Mind

Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things.
—Virgil

Knowing sorrow well, I learn to succor the distressed.
—Virgil
Topics: Compassion, Service, Kindness

Believe one who has proved it. Believe an expert.
—Virgil
Topics: Belief

Too happy would you be, did ye but know your own advantages.
—Virgil
Topics: Blessings, Silver Linings

Fortune favors the brave.
—Virgil

Each man has his appointed day: short and irreparable in the brief life of all, but to extend our fame by our deeds, this is the work of mankind.
—Virgil
Topics: Fame

The noblest motive is the public good.
—Virgil
Topics: God, Patriotism

Take heart again; put your dismal fears away. One day, who knows? Even these hardships will be grand things to look back on.
—Virgil
Topics: Difficulties

Trust one who has gone through it.
—Virgil
Topics: Trust

May the countryside and the gliding valley streams content me. Lost to fame, let me love river and woodland.
—Virgil
Topics: Fame

Nunc scio quit sit amor.
—Virgil
Topics: Love

Endure, and preserve yourselves for better things.
—Virgil
Topics: Endurance, Perseverance, Resolve

They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear.
—Virgil

As a twig is bent the tree inclines.
—Virgil
Topics: Habits, Habit, Consequences

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence.
—Virgil
Topics: Character

Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.
—Virgil
Topics: Destiny

Trust not too much to an enchanting face.
—Virgil
Topics: Beauty

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.”
—Virgil
Topics: Carpe-diem, Death, Death and Dying

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

Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.
—Virgil
Topics: Fear

Trust not to much to appearances.
—Virgil
Topics: Appearance

Rumor grows as it goes.
—Virgil
Topics: Gossip

Happy the man who has been able to know the reasons for things.
—Virgil
Topics: Reason

Go on and increase in valor for this is the path to immortality.
—Virgil
Topics: Bravery, Valor

Impotent fury rages powerless and to no purpose.
—Virgil
Topics: Anger

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