Horace

Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

Labor diligently to increase your property.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.

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

Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep your mind even.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

If you wish me to weep, you must first show grief yourself.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.

Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.

I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.

She stepped out barefoot on to the grass, her soul naked, sun beating to her heart’s rhythm, bathing her skin. In her mind, she had already escaped.

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

Well, dearie, men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability. But you can’t blame them for that, can you?