Martial (c.40–c.104 CE,) Latin name Marcus Valerius Martialis, was a Roman epigrammatist and Latin poet of Spanish origin.
Martial wrote 15 books of Epigrams that consist of over 1,500 short poems that typically direct speak to individuals. His epigrams include celebrations of friendship and the country life, and flattery of the emperor Domitian.
Martial is noted for his satirical and often obscene portraits of the inhabitants of contemporaneous Rome; he prudently uses pseudonyms to disguise the names of those he satirizes.
Martial was much imitated by 17th-century poets such as Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, and Abraham Cowley.
Well-known translations of Martial’s Epigrams include Thomas May’s Selected Epigrams (1629) and Peter Porter’s After Martial (1972.)
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Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
—Martial
Topics: Acceptance, Realization, Awareness
To be able to look back upon one’s past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
—Martial
Topics: The Past, Satisfaction, Past
Glory paid to our ashes comes too late.
—Martial
A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past life is to live twice.
—Martial
Topics: Life, Memory, Goodness
Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.
—Martial
Topics: Mistakes
Tomorrow’s life is too late. Live today.
—Martial
Topics: The Present, Living
Tomorrow I will live, the fool does say: today itself’s too late; the wise lived yesterday.
—Martial
Topics: The Present, Delay
Each day provides its own gifts.
—Martial
Topics: Time Management, Boredom, Value of Time
Laugh if you are wise.
—Martial
Topics: Laughter
Whoever makes great presents expects great presents in return.
—Martial
Topics: Giving
While you cannot resolve what you are, at last you will be nothing.
—Martial
Topics: Being Ourselves
If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial
Topics: Fame
Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.
—Martial
Topics: Individuality
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