Horace

When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.

We are often deterred from crime by the disgrace of others.

You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.

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

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

Short words are the best and old words when short are best of all.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

All diseases run into one, old age.

That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood.

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.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

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.