“'Tis degrading to undertake difficult trifles; and foolish is the labour spent on puerilities.”

— Martial, Epigrammata, Book II, 86 (Loeb translation)

About Martial

40 – 104

Roman poet, master of the epigram.

“Your birthday as my own to me is dear.”

“My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.”

“Believe me, wise men don't say ‘I shall live to do that’, tomorrow's life is too late; live today.”

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!”

“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”

“You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”

“The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.”

“It is man's job to be curious; it is man's job to try to find out the truth about the world about us.”

“The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.”