“The language of truth is simple.”

Worse than a true evil is it to bear the burden of faults that are not truly yours.

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.

Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes angry.

Enough is abundance to the wise.

Surely again, to heal men’s wounds by music’s spell.

Some wisdom you must learn from one who’s wise.

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses his past and is dead for the future.

It’s the wise man who stays home when he’s drunk.

We must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing.

Let a man accept his destiny, No pity and no tears.

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

Authority is never without hate.

Money is far more persuasive than logical arguments.

For in other ways a woman is full of fear, defenseless, dreads the sight of cold steel; but, when once she is wronged in the matter of love, no other soul can hold so many thoughts of blood.

I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

Anger exceeding limits causes fear and excessive kindness eliminates respect.

Our book becomes more clear, and nature seems to speak to us in language so like our own, that we easily comprehend it.

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

Bride knoweth bride at the glance of an eye. And between them swiftly passes comfort and meaning in a language that man and widows wot not of.

It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.

The whole notion of sanity may be an attempt to medicalize morality – to speak of the good in the language of health: to make us more accurate, more scientific in our wanting – but by the same token it becomes a form of moral blackmail.

When I think about literature, I think about it in the three languages I read easily – English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

I have a few minor rules for myself but I break them all the time. For example, when translating from Romance languages to English, there is often a choice between a Latinate cognate and a Germanic equivalent.

Reading across three languages is a way for me to diversify my intake as a reader, not to tunnel into certain categories or demographics.