Horace

O imitators, you slavish herd!

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s house is in flames.

Leave the rest to the gods.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

One night awaits all, and death’s path must be trodden once and for all.

Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans –which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

Your path will unfold as you walk it, step by step, each one a choice. Be mindful of where you put your feet; sometimes you will step on something sharp. This is a lesson; pay attention. Sometimes you will walk on soft green grass and you will stop and stay awhile. Enjoy those moments. Keep your eyes and heart on your destination and discover your way, one step at a time.

Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing.

He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and, since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections.

Being is the great explainer.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.