Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Lindsey Davis
68 quotes
“I like my women in a few wisps of drapery: then I can hope for a chance to remove the wisps. If they start out with nothing I tend to get depressed because either they have just stripped off for someone else or, in my line of work, they are usually dead.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some men are born lucky. Others are born Marcus Didius Falco.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Popular men who laugh at your jokes pose a threat which blatant villains can never command.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my experience, men who sit in corners are the ones to watch.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It struck me there might be a reason why Helena Justina whipped along at such a cracking pace: she did not want to be stuck in the wilderness with my corpse. I thanked Jove for her ruthless good sense. I did not want my corpse to be stuck with her in any case.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'How old now?' 'Thirty. Downhill to the dark boat across the Styx. Probably be sick over the side in Charon's ferry too…'”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Emperors must make their own rules.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Senator, don't let your judgement be warped by one heady moment.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would rather see Rome ruled by a man who once had to ask his accountant tricky questions before his steward could pay the butcher’s bill than by some mad limb like Nero, who was brought up believing himself the son and the grandson of gods, and who thought wearing the purple gave him free rein to indulge his personal vanities, execute real talent, bankrupt the Treasury, burn half of Rome – and bore the living daylights out of paying customers in theatres!”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You could tell those two had been married by the way that she ignored him.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The plumber plodded along in silence, like a man who has learned to be polite to lunatics through dealing with civil engineers.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He listened with the mild demeanour of a man who had waited eight years for his town council to draw up a specification for emergency repairs.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She called me a rat.” “Oh yes, I gathered you two were very close!”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn’t agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had been right in the first place. Getting involved with politicians is complete stupidity.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marcus! I thought you must have been developing other interests, but I never expected to find you with your arms locked round a fish...”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Justice never paid a poor man's bills.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stick with it, Xanthus. There are fortunes to be made out of bristle for a man with deft hands.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But mere technical details can be worked out any time. All a hero needs is grit.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world is full of people slandering their birthplaces, as if they really believe that small-town life is different elsewhere.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're not bloody Aristophanes, and the people who are paying for tickets are not educated Athenians. We're acting for turnips who only come to talk to their cousins and fart. We have to give them a lot of action and low-level jokes, but you can leave all that to us on stage. We know what's required. Your job is to hone the basic framework and remember the simple motto: short speeches, short lines, short words.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new "humour", if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it's now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it's even true.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In fact, making up a spiteful lie has become respectable. Today's "jesters" are outright public nuisances.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In an ideal world I ought to have gone with him to observe their reactions, but in an ideal world heroes never get tired or depressed; what's more, heroes are paid more than me.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love and death are gritty subjects. Their appropriate handling by poets does not require myrtle petals and violets.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He wore the purple; it was his entitlement. With it he had neither wreath nor jewels. For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Smartness always helps in gaining access to the houses of the wealthy. Anyone with a clean face is acceptable to thugs.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not all the fine civic building programmes in the world would ever displace the raw forces that drive most of humankind. This was the true city: greed, corruption and violence.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Do you kill people?' 'Not regularly. It's too much trouble making my peace with the gods afterwards.'”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never lend if you need repayment; never give where you want a return.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘What's the verdict?’ ‘A shining new talent. A breathtaking story, written with mystical intensity. An author who will sell and sell.’”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Luck is a wonderful luxury. What could better prove that some are born under a star of good fortune than the career (and the large, comfortable home) of the Great King?”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That's the trouble with foreign travel. You spend half your time trying to find edible food, and the rest fighting off men who profess extravagant love to your female companions. I'm amazed how many women believe outright lies from foreigners.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Architectural drawings may look beautiful and be admired by critics but to be good, they have to work in daily use.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Discovering that a fraud exists is only the first step. It has to be proved and the proof has to be absolutely watertight.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even the impetuous Helena Justina was an advocate of traditional family councils. However, every Roman matron knows that domestic councils were devised by our foremothers purely so the views of the matron of a household may prevail.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Intimidation and awe are how our rulers keep us respectful.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was no more cynical than most lying lozenge-pushers, but when he thought it mattered, Rhoemetalces had been honest. We cannot have that. Rome is a complex, sophisticated society. Truth is distrusted as much as Greek philosophy.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Do you want a cretin or a meddler?' 'Which is better for us?' 'Whoever gets the larger backhander.' 'We won't pay. We are going for probity.' 'Can't afford true justice, eh?'”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I hear the words 'social order', I start looking around for somebody to pick a fight with.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To know another person's fortune smacks of wanting to control their fate for the wrong reasons.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be born with nothing was grim. But to be born with everything, then to lose it, was far more cruel.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are Romans. We despise thought.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was a solitary walk where the sun and the scents of wild flowers would act on a tortured mind like a soothing drug.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Words are real if other people think they understand their meaning.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have any sheep been seen walking out of the Library with seagoing adventurers clinging to their wool?”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the scale of country crime, rape tended to rank with shouting boo at chickens.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source