Aeneid Quotes

“Fléctere si néqueo súperos Acheronta movebo - If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“...She nourishes the poison in her veins and is consumed by a secret fire.”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
(The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this task and mighty labor lies.)”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“It is easy to go down into Hell...; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air---there's the rub...”
― Virgil

“Death's brother, sleep.”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“..and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea
and what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl...”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“There are twin Gates of Sleep. One, they say, is called the Gate of Horn and it offers easy passage to all true shades. The other glistens with ivory, radiant, flawless, but through it the dead send false dreams up toward the sky. And here Anchises, his vision told in full, escorts his son and Sibyl both and shows them out now through the Ivory Gate.”
― Virgil

“The signs of the old flame, I know them well.
I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me down
or the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades,
the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night,
before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.”
― Virgil

“The Greeks shape bronze statues so real they seem to breathe,
And carve cold marble until it almost comes to life.
The Greeks compose great orations, and measure
The heavens so well they can predict the rising of the stars.
But you, Romans, remember your great arts;
To govern the peoples with authority,
To establish peace under the rule of law,
To conquer the mighty, and show them mercy once they are conquered."

-Virgil, Aeneid VI, 847-853”
― Virgil

“Macte virtute, sic itur ad astra.

("excellence is the way to the stars" - IX.641)”
― Virgil, Aeneid

“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”
― Enoch Powell

“Then answered her son, who turns the stars in the sky:
'What way art thou bending fate, Mother? What dost thou ask
For these thy ships? May vessels built by the hands
Of mortal men claim an immortal right?
Is Aeneas to pass, sure of the outcome, through dangers
When nothing is sure? To what god is such power allowed?”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“I am Aeneas, duty-bound, and known
Above high air of heaven by my fame. -AM #CymruAMbyth”
― Aeneas Middleton

“Augustine said he wept more for the death of Dido than he did for the death of his own saviour. What about Book Four, the best book of the best poem of the best poet?”
― Boris Johnson