Plautus

Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright in the time of the Roman Republic. The years of his life are uncertain, but his plays were first produced between about 205 BC and 184 BC.

Sourced

• The face that thou shalt smite in earnest is bound thereafter to be boneless.
  • Amphitryon, Act I, scene i.

• Oh, are not the pleasures in life, in this daily round, trifling compared with the pains!
  • Amphitryon, Act II, scene ii.

• Courage is the very best gift of all; courage stands before everything, it does, it does! It is what maintains and preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things: a man with courage has every blessing.
  • Amphitryon, Act II, scene ii.

• Things which you do not hope happen more frequently than things which you do hope.
  • Mostellaria, Act I, scene iii, line 40

• Nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience.
  • Mostellaria, Act V, scene i, line 14.

• Drink, live like the Greeks, eat, gorge.
  • From the Latin "Bibite, pergraecamini, ese, ecfercite vos."
  • Mostellaria, 1. 64

• Nothing is there more friendly to a man than a friend in need.
  • Epidicus, Act III, sc. iii, l. 44.

• What is yours is mine, and all mine is yours.
  • Trinummus, Act II, sc. ii, l. 48

• Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.
  • Trinummus, Act II, sc. ii, l. 88

• There are occasions when it is undoubtedly better to incur loss than to make gain.
  • Captivi, Act II, sc. ii, l, 77

• Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.
  • Rudens, Act II, sc. v, l. 71

• Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts its life to one hole only.
  • Truculentus, Act IV, sc. iv, l. 15

• No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days.
  • Miles Gloriosus, Act III, sc. i

• You miss the point? The lady that spares her lover spares herself too little.
  • Asinaria, Act I, scene iii

• The chap that endures hard knocks like a man enjoys a soft time later on.
  • Asinaria, Act II, scene ii

• I say, Libanus, what a poor devil a chap in love is!
  • Asinaria, Act III, scene iii

• Practice yourself what you preach.
  • Asinaria, Act III, sc. iii, l. 644

• Man is no man, but a wolf, to a stranger.
  • Asinaria, Act II, sc. iv, l. 495

• He whom the gods love dies young.
  • From the Latin "Quem di diligunt adulescens moritur."
  • Bacchides 816-17. Derived from Menander's The Double Deceiver; but only the Plautine version was known until the rediscovery of Menander in the 20th century.