Horace

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.

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

We are free to yield to truth.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectual and happily than seriousness.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

He’s a man of great common sense and good taste – meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

If you want the moon, do not hide from the night. If you want a rose, do not hide from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.

When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.

Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

Covetousness is the greatest of monsters, as well as the root of all evil.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.

Tis admirable to consider, how Powerful the Kings are, yet they move by the Breath of their People.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

You get a reputation for stability if you are stable for years.