Horace

He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world.

Sad people dislike the happy, and the happy the sad; the quick thinking the sedate, and the careless the busy and industrious.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person.

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.

Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.

They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.

To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.

I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.

Wherever work is done, victory is attained.

The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails – aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

If thou wouldn’t conquer thy weakness thou must not gratify it.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.

In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper.