Horace

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them.

Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person.

O imitators, you slavish herd!

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

To be in time is to be asleep: to be awake is to be in eternity.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

Life is one long process of getting tired.

In all our contacts it is probably the sense of being really needed and wanted which gives us the greatest satisfaction and creates the most lasting bond.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

You should always own a black dress because no one ever remembers a black dress.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.