Q - Quintus Ennius
Posted on 23rd January 2021
Quintus Ennius 239 – 169BC was a writer and poet born around 239BC during the Roman Republic. He is often considered to be the ‘Father of Roman poetry’.
He served as a centurion during the Second Punic Wars and was later taken to Rome where he worked both as a teacher of Greek and adapting Greek plays.
‘To open his lips is crime in a plain citizen’
‘The idle mind knows not what it wants’
‘He who has two languages has two souls’
‘That is true liberty, which bears a pure and firm breast’
‘Don’t ask of your friends what you yourself can do’
‘They hate whom they fear’
‘Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men’
‘Whom men fear they hate, and whom they hate, they wish dead’
‘He whose wisdom cannot help him, gets no good from being wise’
‘A true friend is trusted in adversity’
‘He who civilly shows the way to one who has missed it, is as one who has lighted another’s lamp from his own lamp; it none the less gives light to himself when it burns for the other’
‘A sure friend is known in unsure circumstances’
‘No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars’
‘Here is he laid to whom for daring deed, nor friend nor foe could render worthy meed’
‘O friend unseen, unborn, unknown Student of our sweet English tongue, I never indulge in poetics – Unless I am down with rheumatics’
‘No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth’
‘A true friend is a friend when in difficulty’
‘He hath freedom whoso beareth clean and constant heart within’
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