Horace

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

It is your concern when your neighbor’s wall is on fire.

I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.

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.

Knowledge without education is but armed injustice.

When a man is just and firm in his purpose, the citizens burning to approve a wrong or the frowning looks of a tyrant. Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind. Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic, nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove: Should the heavens crack and tumble down, as the ruins crushed him he would not fear.

All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

My reputation grows with every failure.

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman – repose in energy.

The never-ending task of self improvement.

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

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

He took off his hat and shook it (having hurried home as though his own coronation were waiting), and moved now with the slow deliberation of lonely people who have time for every meager requirement of their lives.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.