Horace

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

He that has given today may, if he so please, take away tomorrow.

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

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

Leave the rest to the gods.

How many are the things I can do without!

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn’t got any.

You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

The soul’s emphasis is always right.

The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

When you’ve got them by their wallets, their hearts and minds will follow.

Children are all foreigners.

When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take seriously, the other person is ashamed to carry through even if he was serious about it.