Horace

Strange – is it not? That of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the road Which to discover we must travel too.

If a man’s fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.

A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them.

Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.

He who is upright in his way of life and free from sin.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Reality is a sliding door.

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found myself, myself as well.

I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.

Shut your mouth, close your lips, and say something!

All mankind love a lover.

There are those that are void of all mercy, but when it comes the time that they are on their knees, they plead for it. Those that were born with the art of deception, never sincere with their words or actions. But mercy is not theirs to take, only for you to give. Never compromise your standards, your beliefs and become like the ones who you are fighting against, but stay resolute to who you are.

Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search, or wider survey than others, and detected faults and follies which escape vulgar observation.

How hard you work matters more than how much you make.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

We are just statistics, born to consume resources.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.