Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus) lived in the years 37 – 68 CE. Roman emperor in the years 54 – 68 CE.
- “There is no other way of enjoying riches and money than by riotous extravagance, declaring that only stingy and niggardly fellows kept a correct account of what they spent”
- latin: [Divitiarum et pecuniae fructum non alium putabat quam profusionem, sordidos ac deparcos esse quibus impensarum ratio constaret, praelautos vereque magnificos qui abuterentur ac perderent]
- source: Suetonius, Nero 30
- “How I wish I had never learned to write!”
- latin: [Quam vellem nescire litteras]
- description: by signing a death sentence at the beginning of his reign, previously refusing to do it.
- source: Suetonius, Nero 10
- “However much it may be your advice and your wish that I should return speedily, yet you ought rather to counsel me and to hope that I may return worthy of Nero”
- latin: [Quamvis nunc tuum consilium sit et votum celeriter reverti me, tamen suadere et optare potius debes, ut Nerone dignus revertar]
- description: Nero’s response to the pressing pleas of one of his freedmen for Nero to return from Olympia to Rome.
- source: Suetonius, Nero 23
- “What an artist the world loses in me”
- latin: [Qualis artifex pereo!]
- description: words attributed to him before he died.
- source: Suetonius, Nero 49
- “I am at last beginning to be housed like a human being”
- latin: [Hactenus comprobavit, ut se diceret quasi hominem tandem habitare coepisse]
- description: he said once he entered his new palace (Domus Aurea).
- source: Suetonius, Nero 31
- “Wait until I deserve them”
- latin: [Cum meruero]
- description: his words, when the senate passed a vote of thanks to him.
- source: Suetonius, Nero 10
