Horace

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar – that I call an achievement.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

A picture is a poem without words.

As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it.

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

The man is either mad, or he is making verses.

The future is purchased by the present.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

The most dangerous thing is illusion.

The truest end of life is to know that life never ends.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.

I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.

There is only one good – knowledge; and only one evil – ignorance.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

We love and lose in China, we weep on England’s moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we’re the same.

The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.

I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.