It is no easy matter to say commonplace things in an original way.
Death is the ultimate boundary of human matters.
Poets wish to profit or to please.
Not treasured wealth, nor the consul's lictor, can dispel the mind's bitter conflicts and the cares that flit, like bats, about your fretted roofs.
We get blows and return them.
When I caution you against becoming a miser, I do not therefore advise you to become a prodigal or a spendthrift.