Horace

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.

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

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.

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.

A good scare is worth more than good advice.

Patience makes lighter What sorrow may not heal.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

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.

If you are in a poker game and after 20 minutes you don’t know who the patsy is, then you’re the patsy.

The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.

The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

In the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am – unbound.