You admire, Vacerra, only the poets of old and praise only those who are dead. Pardon me, I beseech you, Vacerra, if I think death too high a price to pay for your praise.

Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.

If you want him to mourn, you had best leave him nothing.

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.

You praise, in three hundred verses, Sabellus, the baths of Ponticus, who gives such excellent dinners. You wish to dine, Sabellus, not to bathe.

You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't say no.

While you cannot resolve what you are, at last you may be nothing.