Ut quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum." - Meaning and context.">
What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.
• Book IV, line 637 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
• Compare: "What's one man's poison, signor, / Is another's meat or drink", Beaumont and Fletcher, Love's Cure (1647), Act III, scene 2
“

Ut quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum.

— Lucretius

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Ut quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum." in the context of "What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.
• Book IV, line 637 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
• Compare: "What's one man's poison, signor, / Is another's meat or drink", Beaumont and Fletcher, Love's Cure (1647), Act III, scene 2" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Lucretius" (Quotes, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Lucretius

About Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 BC – 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His major work is De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things, which is considered by some to be the greatest masterpiece of Latin verse.