Horace

Gold will be slave or master.

He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.

It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one’s country.

To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.

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.

Money is a handmaiden, if thou knowest how to use it; a mistress, if thou knowest not.

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

Help a man against his will and you do the same as murder him.

Think with your whole body.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea.

He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist’s custom.

A good conscience is a continual feast.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.