Horace

Leave the rest to the gods.

One gains universal applause who mingles the useful with the agreeable, at once delighting and instructing the reader.

Fidelity is the sister of justice.

One night awaits all, and death’s path must be trodden once and for all.

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

A picture is a poem without words.

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

An index is a great leveller.

Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep your mind even.

It always seems impossible until its done.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

Every stroke our fury strikes is sure to hit ourselves at last.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal.

I think that age is irrelevant. We’re all pretty much spiritual beings – I consider myself to be about eighty-five. I feel like I’m ancient, like two thousand years old.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.