Horace

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.

Avoid inquisitive persons, for they are sure to be gossips, their ears are open to hear, but they will not keep what is entrusted to them.

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years.

Nothing’s beautiful from every point of view.

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

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything for us to do.

It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.

When you place yourself in a position to help another, you will discover your greater capabilities.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial “we.”

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.