“Some good, some so-so, and lots plain bad: that’s how a book of poems is made, my Friend.”

There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

The present joys of life we doubly taste, By looking back with pleasure to the past.

Wine and women bring misery.

He who prefers to give Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half.

Be not too thick with anybody; your joys will be fewer, and so will pains.

Fortune gives many too much, but none enough.

There is nothing more revolting than an old busybody.

You may envy every one, but no one envies you.

A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice.

The face that cannot smile is never fair.

Of no day can the retrospect cause pain to a good man.

Those they praise, but they read the others.

No amount of misfortune will satisfy the man who is not satisfied with reading a hundred epigrams.

If you are poor now, Aemilianus, you will always be poor. Riches are now given to none but the rich.

A good man enlarges the term of his own existence.

The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved in amber, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar.