Horace

Anger is a brief lunacy.

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

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar – that I call an achievement.

A picture is a poem without words.

While fools shun one set of faults they run into the opposite one.

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

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!

The people are to be taken in small doses.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.

That man is idle who can do something better.

There is nothing assured to mortals.

Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts … good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.

Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. He lived happily ever after.

Never learn to do anything. If you don’t learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.