Horace

A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune.

How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!

Poets wish to profit or to please.

Whatever advice you give, be short.

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

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.

Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?

Life is short, but there is always time for courtesy.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

A good conscience is a continual feast.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.

Events tend to recur in cycles…

When many demons are struggling inside you, the one that you feed is the one that will become the strongest. You alone are responsible for what you feed.

Let us try what love will do.

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?