Romans Quotes

“Frank Zhang! I, Jason Grace, praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, give you my final order: I resign my post and give you emergency field promotion to praetor, with the full powers of that rank. Take command of this legion!”
― Rick Riordan, The House of Hades

“...Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed all mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.

[Letters to John Taylor, 1814, XVIII, p. 484]”
― John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement
give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow
Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
― Anonymous, The Holy Bible: King James Version

“Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health ... what have the Romans ever done for us?

Brought peace!”
― Monty Python, The Life of Brian: Screenplay

“What happened?

It took Gibbon six volumes to describe the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, so I shan’t embark on that. But thinking about this almost incredible episode does tell one something about the nature of civilisation.

It shows that however complex and solid it seems, it is actually quite fragile. It can be destroyed.



What are its enemies?


Well, first of all fear — fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that make it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees or even planning next year’s crops. And fear of the supernatural, which means that you daren’t question anything or change anything.

The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals, mystery religions, that destroyed self-confidence. And then exhaustion, the feeling of hopelessness which can overtake people even with a high degree of material prosperity. 

There is a poem by the modern Greek poet, Cavafy, in which he imagines the people of an antique town like Alexandria waiting every day for the barbarians to come and sack the city. Finally the barbarians move off somewhere else and the city is saved; but the people are disappointed — it would have been better than nothing.

Of course, civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity—

What civilization needs:

confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. The way in which the stones of the Pont du Gard are laid is not only a triumph of technical skill, but shows a vigorous belief in law and discipline.

Vigour, energy, vitality: all the civilisations—or civilising epochs—have had a weight of energy behind them.

People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversations and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilisation, but they are not what make a civilisation, and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.”
― Kenneth Clark, Civilisation

“On my desk is an appeal from the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. It asks me to become a sponsor and donor of this soon-to-be-opened institution, while an accompanying leaflet has enticing photographs of Bob Dylan, Betty Friedan, Sandy Koufax, Irving Berlin, Estee Lauder, Barbra Streisand, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. There is something faintly kitsch about this, as there is in the habit of those Jewish papers that annually list Jewish prize-winners from the Nobel to the Oscars. (It is apparently true that the London Jewish Chronicle once reported the result of a footrace under the headline 'Goldstein Fifteenth.') However, I think I may send a contribution. Other small 'races' have come from unpromising and hazardous beginnings to achieve great things—no Roman would have believed that the brutish inhabitants of the British Isles could ever amount to much—and other small 'races,' too, like Gypsies and Armenians, have outlived determined attempts to eradicate and exterminate them. But there is something about the persistence, both of the Jews and their persecutors, that does seem to merit a museum of its own.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“To Judaism Christians ascribe the glory of having been the first religion to teach a pure monotheism. But monotheism existed long before the Jews attained to it. Zoroaster and his earliest followers were monotheists, dualism being a later development of the Persian theology. The adoption of monotheism by the Jews, which occurred only at a very late period in their history, was not, however, the result of a divine revelation, or even of an intellectual superiority, for the Jews were immeasurably inferior intellectually to the Greeks and Romans, to the Hindus and Egyptians, and to the Assyrians and Babylonians, who are supposed to have retained a belief in polytheism. This monotheism of the Jews has chiefly the result of a religious intolerance never before equaled and never since surpassed, except in the history of Christianity and Mohammedanism, the daughters of Judaism. Jehovistic priests and kings tolerated no rivals of their god and made death the penalty for disloyalty to him. The Jewish nation became monotheistic for the same reason that Spain, in the clutches of the Inquisition, became entirely Christian.”
― John E. Remsburg, The Christ

“O [Roman] people be ashamed; be ashamed of your lives. Almost no cities are free of evil dens, are altogether free of impurities, except the cities in which the barbarians have begun to live...

Let nobody think otherwise, the vices of our bad lives have alone conquered us...

The Goths lie, but are chaste, the Franks lie, but are but are generous, the Saxons are savage in cruelty...but are admirable in chastity...what hope can there be [for the Romans] when the barbarians are more pure [than they]?"

-Salvian”
― William J Federer, Change to Chains-The 6,000 Year Quest for Control -Volume I-Rise of the Republic

“Aku juga punya banyak hal yang ingin kukatakan padamu. Karena itu tunggulah aku disini”
― Shinichi Kudo

“Aku kira kamu akan terus ada di sampingku. Tak pernah terpikirkan kamu akan menghilang dari sisiku”
― In love with you

“Disukai oleh orang yang kita sukai itu ternyata sangat menyenangkan”
― In love with you

“C’était leur secret. Kai comptait plus que quiconque pour Ren. Bien plus que Phœnix ou qu’Indigo. Personne n’oublie jamais son premier amour, peu importe le temps qui passe et non-dits.”
― Myosotis, Vengeance and Legends

“Dla mnie każde życie jest cenne, Troy. Dla ciebie każde życie ma cenę.”
― Angela Santini, Marina

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ”
― Paul the Apostle, Romans: Bible #45, ESV

“What if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yes, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”
― Paul the Apostle, Romans: Bible #45, ESV

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”
― Paul the Apostle

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God. Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has given us”
― Paul the Apostle, Romans KJV: King James Version

“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I do not understand what I am doing. For I do not practice what I wish, but I do what I hate. However, if I do what I do not wish, I agree that the Law is fine. But now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that resides in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells nothing good; for I have the desire to do what is fine but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good that I wish, but the bad that I do not wish is what I practice. If, then, I do what I do not wish, I am no longer the one carrying it out, but it is the sin dwelling in me.”
― Paul the Apostle

“Now, old and gray-bearded, I still admire the Romans. How could I not? We could not build an arena, nor make ramparts like those that surrounded Ceaster. Our roads were muddy tracks, theirs were stone-edged and spear-straight. They built temples of marble, we made churches of timber. Our floors were beaten earth and rushes, theirs were marvels of intricate tilework. They had laced the land with wonders, and we, who had taken the land, could only watch the wonders decay, or patch them with wattle and thatch. True, they were a cruel people, but so are we. Life is cruel.”
― Bernard Cornwell, War of the Wolf

“As Smollett relates, Dumbarton has always sat on the edge of something. Historically, it has marked the line between the Romans and Picts, between the Picts and Britons, and between Highlands and Lowlands. The area has been a geographic, social, cultural, linguistic, agricultural and economic border zone for millennia. This liminal status seems to fascinate Smollett, and he returns to it again and again in his writing.”
― Craig Smith, The Scottish Enlightenment: Human Nature, Social Theory and Moral Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Christopher J. Berry

“We also like our sauces to be spicy. As Chaucer said, "Woe to the cook whose sauces had no sting!" Incidentally, I can't help wondering if there is an ancestral link between our Worcestershire Sauce and the garum sauce so beloved of the Roman legionaries. Could this be another legacy of Caesar's invasion?
REVD. WALTER ALFORD, Chester”
― Caroline Scott, Good Taste

“Podobno zło jest pociągające. Może to dlatego kobiety lecą na niegrzecznych chłopców, a potem są zdziwione, że nie kończy się to happy endem.”
― Maja Wierzbicka

“- Żółte róże symbolizują zdradę - doprecyzowała.
- Myślę, że gdyby faceci o tym wiedzieli, toby nie było w kwiaciarniach róż o tym kolorze.”
― Maja Wierzbicka, Bez wyboru

“...mam dla ciebie ciekawą ofertę, jeśli nadal pociąga cię wizja baru dla mieszkańców sanatorium. No i patrzenie na mnie w opiętej koszuli.
- Opiętej czy rozpiętej? Bo coś przerwało, a to bardzo istotny szczegół.
- Jeśli mi ją rozepniesz na zapleczu, nie będę protestował.”
― Maja Wierzbicka, Bez wyboru

“- Czuję się ostatnio jak w filmie - stwierdziłem.
- Ja też, choć wolałabym, żeby był to film porno, a nie kryminał.”
― Maja Wierzbicka, Bez wyboru

“In Extremis by Stewart Stafford

Saturnalia's trumpets sound,
The ancestral chorus song,
Time's gold web drawn back,
For the stocks' denizen throng.

Bawdy knights of the feral feast,
Daze of snoring stranger sloth,
As contagion's banquet guests,
Sipping end times' galling broth.

Bean found in fortuitous cake,
A fool crowned Lord of Misrule,
The meek's pantomimed throne,
A drone in a queen bee's tulle.

Fatted calf, societal scapegoat,
Chattels mopping festive vomit,
Charon coins on bloodshot eyes,
Execution dawn to a dark comet.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Let us take heed how we carry ourselves to the creation which is to occupy with us the world to come.

To those whose hearts are sore for that creation, I say, The Lord is mindful of his own, and will save both man and beast.”
― George MacDonald, Hope of the Gospel

“Jego karmelowe oczy patrzyły na mnie błagalnie. Widziałam w nich gwiazdy, jednak okazało się, że świeciły dla innego nieba.”
― Joanna Balicka, Korepetytor

“- Co pani dolega?
- Miłość. Jestem chora z miłości.
- Jak my wszyscy.”
― Joanna Balicka, Korepetytor