No poem was ever written by a drinker of water.

He who has lost his money-belt will go where you wish.

This was my prayer: an adequate portion of land with a garden and a spring of water and a small wood to complete the picture.

Let the character as it began be preserved to the last; and let it be consistent with itself.

What has this unfeeling age of ours left untried, what wickedness has it shunned?

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

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.