I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars.

Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.

This very Rome that we behold deserves our love ...: the only common and universal city.

He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.

One should always have one's boots on and be ready to leave.

I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own.

Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.