To fear pleasure and to fly from joy appears to me the worst insult that one can offer to nature.

I am assured that during their lives certain of the elect of thy god abstained from food and avoided women through love of asceticism, and voluntarily exposed themselves to useless sufferings.

I should be afraid of meeting those, criminals whose frenzy horrifies me.

A poet must not be asked to attach himself too strictly to any scientific or moral doctrine.

Moreover, I am a Roman, and the Romans, unlike the Greeks, are unable to pursue profound speculations in a subtle manner.