We are just statistics, born to consume resources.
Carpe diem. (Seize The Day)
Don’t think, just do.
He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.
We are but dust and shadow.
Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.
The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant’s threatening countenance.
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.
Choose a subject equal to your abilities; think carefully what your shoulders may refuse, and what they are capable of bearing.
Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, but any means money.
Even as we speak, time speeds swiftly away.
If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all.
More brave in despising gold as yet undiscovered, and so best situated while hidden in the earth, than in forcing it out for the uses of mankind, with a hand ready to make depredations on everything that is sacred.
The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; High towers fall with a heavier crash; And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.
Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
A word, once sent abroad, flies irrevocably.
He gains everyone’s approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.
It is not enough for poems to be beautiful; they must be affecting, and must lead the heart of the hearer as they will.
One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.
This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.
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
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.
Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.
Struggling to be brief I become obscure.
We are often deterred from crime by the disgrace of others.
Be fair or foul, or rain or shine the joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself, upon the past has power, but what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
Every old poem is sacred.
If matters go badly now, they will not always be so.
Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born.
The man is either mad, or he is making verses.
Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year?
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
He gets every vote who combines the useful with the pleasant, and who, at the same time he pleases the reader, also instructs him.
It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods, to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.
This is a fault common to singers that among their friends they were never inclined to sing when they were asked, unasked they never desist.
You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.
Cease to ask what the morrow will bring forth, and set down as gain each day that fortune grants.
He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, I have lived: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine.”
Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.
Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.
A cultivated wit, one that badgers less, can persuade all the more. Artful ridicule can address contentious issues more competently and vigorously than can severity alone.
