Horace

You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don’t labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.

He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others.

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

In the word of no master am I bound to believe.

It’s a good thing to be foolishly gay once in a while.

Not even the Devil can call a woman “Slut” if he is not able to make her fall in love.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Whether he knew it or not, the life he lived was his penance. Punishing himself, for what he believes are his sins. Consciously or subconsciously, he creates the world he lives in. Never believing that he is deserving happiness, deserving joy. His self-destructive nature, in his eyes, and his eyes only, is justified. Everyone is deserving absolution, but he needs to understand, that he is the only one able to forgive himself.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Looking? Found someone you have, eh?

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.

Nothing is black or white.

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.