Horace

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

Fortune makes a fool of those she favors too much.

A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

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.

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.

He is armed without who is innocent within, be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass.

It is your business when the wall next door catches fire.

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.

Whatever advice you give, be short.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

In adversity remember to keep an even mind.

The power of daring anything their fancy suggest, as always been conceded to the painter and the poet.

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

If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.

Every old poem is sacred.

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

It's a good thing to be foolishly gay once in a while.

Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born.

Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.