Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.

A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.

God loves to help him who strives to help himself.

The wisest of the wise may err.

God always strives together with those who strive.

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.

My friends, whoever has had experience of evils knows how whenever a flood of ills comes upon mortals, a man fears everything; but whenever a divine force cheers on our voyage, then we believe that the same fate will always blow fair.

It is always in season for old men to learn.

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.

For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

Death is softer by far than tyranny.

Of all the gods only death does not desire gifts.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams.

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

When strength is yoked with justice, where is a mightier pair than they?

But time growing old teaches all things.

Time brings all things to pass.

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

For somehow this disease inheres in tyranny, never to trust one's friends.

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.

Wisdom comes alone through suffering.

Of prosperity mortals can never have enough.

It is good even for old men to learn wisdom.

What is there more kindly than the feeling between host and guest?

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

Excessive fear is always powerless.

Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering.

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water.

When you think positive, good things happen.

A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.

Forgotten is forgiven.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane... There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.

I'm a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won't.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.