Horace

Youth is unduly busy with pampering the outer person.

Nothing’s beautiful from every point of view.

The foolish are like ripples on water, For whatsoever they do is quickly effaced; But the righteous are like carvings upon stone, For their smallest act is durable.

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s wall is ablaze.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s house is in flames.

The stupidity of men always invites the insolence of power.

Principles aren’t of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

Better is the enemy of good.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby-so helpless and so ridiculous.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.

What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or how to say any thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the dear deceit of beauty.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.