Horace

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

If a better system is thine, impart it; if not, make use of mine.

If matters go badly now, they will not always be so.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow. [Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.Lat.]

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

I don’t like needing anyone for anything.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet, drink, and botanical medicines.

No just cause is futile, even if it’s lost, if it helps make the future better than the past.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.