Come boy, and pour for me a cup Of old Falernian. Fill it up With wine, strong, sparkling, bright, and clear; Our host decrees no water here. Let dullards drink the Nymph's pale brew, The sluggish thin their blood with dew. For such pale stuff we have no use; For us the purple grape's rich juice. Begone, ye chilling water sprite; Here burning Bacchus rules tonight! Catullus, Selections From Catullus No poems can live long or please that are written by water-drinkers.

If the crow had been satisfied to eat his prey in silence, he would have had more meat and less quarreling and envy.

The poets aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.

There are faults we would fain pardon.

There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.

The accumulation of wealth is followed by an increase of care, and by an appetite for more.

I have raised for myself a monument more durable than brass.