I was reading Satires by Juvenal otherwise known as Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis .. He was a Roman satiric poet. I couldn’t but marvel at some of his lines and wanted to keep some for records and reference:-
Travel by night in Roma is fraught with danger from falling tiles, thugs, and robbers.
Since there are so many poets wasting paper and everyone’s time anyway – why not write?
Begging is better than being treated disrespectfully at a patron's dinner.
An invitation to dinner is a social exchange for your services as a client.
Different wines and goblets for different social ranks.
Different water is served by different grades of slaves - and different breads served by arrogant slaves. The patron gets a lobster, and you get a crayfish; he gets a Corsican mullet, and you get a sewer-fish.
If you had a fortune the patron would respect you; it is the cash that he really respects. Different mushrooms and apples.
"throw the bolt and lock her in.” But who is going to guard the guards themselves,
The urge to write is an addictive disease.
Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering
Lust for military glory has ruined countries, and time will destroy even the graves of famous generals.
What did Hannibal ultimately accomplish? He dies of poison in exile.
The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was. Xerxes I crawled back to Persia after his misadventure in Greece.
Long life just means ugliness, helplessness, impotence, and the loss of all pleasure.
Old people are deaf and full of diseases. Dementia is the worst affliction of all.
Many men would have been thought fortunate if they had died before a late disaster overtook them: e.g. Croesus, Marius, and Pompey.
Now rich people get no enjoyment from delicacies unless they eat from tables decorated with ivory.
It takes no philosopher to realize that there are many worse wrongs than being defrauded. A financial loss is mourned more than a death, and it is mourned with real tears.
Become a lawyer, join the army, or become a merchant. Profit smells good, wherever it’s from. Nobody inquires into where you got it, but you have to have it.
The anxiety of protecting wealth and possessions is a misery. Alexander the Great realized that the cynic Diogenes was happier than himself while living in his pottery home, since Alexander’s anxieties and dangers matched his ambitions, while Diogenes was content with what he had and could easily replace.
How much is enough then? As much as Epicurus or Socrates was content to possess is best, or - in the Roman manner - a fortune equal to the equestrian order. If twice or three times that does not suffice, then not even the wealth of Croesus or of Persia will suffice.
But these days there is greater concord among snakes.
In Egypt they worship bizarre animal-headed gods, but not the familiar Roman ones. Similarly, they wont eat normal things, but do practice cannibalism. Ulysses must have been thought a liar for his tale of the Laestrygonians or the Cyclopes.
Compassion is what separates humans from animals. The creator gave humans mind (animus) as well as life (vita), so that people could live together in a civil society.
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Many of us may think that management writers and authors have contributed many a maxims and have proclaimed some of these as theirs; but facts reveal that some of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis’ lines are the source of many brilliant, familiar and memorable aphorisms today.
Oh! By the way he existed between 60 AD to 140 AD1 AD to 2 AD. That is nearly 2000 years back. Time and again my views have been substantiated that there is nothing new in this world. All things have been said and done………its only that you don't know or are not aware of it___
So much for your thoughts!
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