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. 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

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

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

Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.
Virgil
Topics: Risk

Each person, makes their own terrible passion their God.
Virgil
Topics: God

Time bears away all things, even the mind.
Virgil
Topics: Patience, Resilience, Time

Enter on the way of training while the spirits in youth are still pliable.
Virgil
Topics: Learning

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

Fear betrays unworthy souls.
Virgil

We may be masters of our every lot by bearing it.
Virgil
Topics: Endurance, Perseverance, Resolve

They can, because they think they can.
Virgil
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Optimism, Belief

I saw these terrible things, and took great part in them.
Virgil

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

Let us go singing as far as we go; the road will be less tedious.
Virgil
Topics: Passion, Enthusiasm

Our fate, whatever it is to be, will be overcome by patience under it.
Virgil
Topics: Fate

Curst greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power has caused.
Virgil
Topics: Gold, Greed

The greatest wealth is health.
Virgil
Topics: Health

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

They are able because they think they are able.
Virgil
Topics: Assurance, Confidence, Ability

Whatever may happen, every kind of fortune is to be overcome by bearing it.
Virgil
Topics: Fortune

Trust not to much to appearances.
Virgil
Topics: Appearance

Trust not too much to appearances.
Virgil
Topics: Appearance

Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor?
Virgil
Topics: Defeat

Age carries all things away, even the mind.
Virgil

The flocks fear the wolf, the crops the storm, and the trees the wind.
Virgil
Topics: Fear

The brave venture anything.
Virgil
Topics: Courage

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

Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.
Virgil
Topics: Evil

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

Love conquers all; let us surrender to love.
Virgil
Topics: Love

Command large fields, but cultivate small ones.
Virgil

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