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
Fame hides her head among the clouds.
—Virgil
Topics: Fame
Thus all things are doomed to change for the worse and retrograde.
—Virgil
Topics: Change
Go on and increase in valor for this is the path to immortality.
—Virgil
Topics: Valor, Bravery
It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.
—Virgil
Impotent fury rages powerless and to no purpose.
—Virgil
Topics: Anger
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
Perhaps one day this too will be pleasant to remember.
—Virgil
Topics: Resilience, Memory
Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things.
—Virgil
Trust one who has gone through it.
—Virgil
Topics: Trust
Trust not too much to appearances.
—Virgil
Topics: Appearance
Fear betrays unworthy souls.
—Virgil
Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.
—Virgil
Topics: Risk
Believe one who has proved it. Believe an expert.
—Virgil
Topics: Belief
Happy the man who has been able to know the reasons for things.
—Virgil
Topics: Reason
Perhaps even these things, one day, will be pleasing to remember.
—Virgil
Topics: Memory
Press no further with hate.
—Virgil
Topics: Hatred, Hate
The brave venture anything.
—Virgil
Topics: Courage
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: Happiness, Attitude
Mind moves matter.
—Virgil
Topics: The Mind, Mind
A fickle and changeful thing is a woman ever.
—Virgil
Topics: Women
Blessings on your young courage, boy; that’s the way to the stars.
—Virgil
Topics: Advice
Fear is proof of a low born soul.
—Virgil
Topics: Fear
Enter on the way of training while the spirits in youth are still pliable.
—Virgil
Topics: Learning
Each person, makes their own terrible passion their God.
—Virgil
Topics: God
They can, because they think they can.
—Virgil
Topics: Optimism, Belief, Positive Attitudes
Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.
—Virgil
Topics: Evil
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
Hope on, and save yourself for prosperous times.
—Virgil
Topics: Hope
Wherever the fates lead us let us follow.
—Virgil
Topics: Fate
Fortune sides with him who dares.
—Virgil
Topics: Luck, Fortune
Trust not to much to appearances.
—Virgil
Topics: Appearance
Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.
—Virgil
Topics: Destiny
Knowing sorrow well, I learn to succor the distressed.
—Virgil
Topics: Kindness, Service, Compassion
As a twig is bent the tree inclines.
—Virgil
Topics: Consequences, Habit, Habits
We may be masters of our every lot by bearing it.
—Virgil
Topics: Perseverance, Endurance, Resolve
Fortune helps the brave.
—Virgil
Topics: Courage
Rumor grows as it goes.
—Virgil
Topics: Gossip
From a single crime know the nation.
—Virgil
Topics: Criminals, Crime
Trust not the horse, O Trojans. Be it what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts.
—Virgil
Topics: Giving, Charity
Curst greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power has caused.
—Virgil
Topics: Greed, Gold
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