Horace

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

If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.

Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.

Live as brave men and face adversity with stout hearts.

Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.

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.

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way?

I was born upon thy bank, river, my blood flows in thy stream, and thou meanderest forever. At the bottom of my dream.

I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone… I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.