“The Roman state stands by ancient customs, and its manhood.”

Ennius was the father of Roman poetry, because he first introduced into Latin the Greek manner and in particular the hexameter metre.

Don’t ask of your friends what you yourself can do.

They hate whom they fear.

Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral rites with weeping.

Let no one honour me with tears, or bury me with lamentation. Why? Because I fly hither and thither, living in the mouths of me. [Lat., Nemo me lacrymis decoret, nec funera fletu. Faxit cur? Volito vivu’ per ora virum.]

He hath freedom whoso beareth a clean and constant heart within.

Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.

He who has two languages has two souls.

Here is he laid to whom for daring deed, nor friend nor foe could render worthy meed.

The ape, vilest of beasts, how like to us.

I never indulge in rhyme or stanza Unless I’m in bed with the influenza.

The wise man is wise in vain who cannot be wise to his own advantage.

He who civilly shows the way to one who has missed it, is as one who has lighted another’s lamp from his own lamp; it none the less gives light to himself when it burns for the other.

The idle mind knows not what it wants.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, I never indulge in poetics – Unless I am down with rheumatics.

A true friend is tested in adversity.

Customer expectations? Nonsense. No customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire, the VCR, or the CD.

The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow – so arbitrary are these transient laws.

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.

Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved.

To bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres with corn … seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000 bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime.

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

The National Targeting Center in Virginia run by Customs and Border Protection checks the background of every traveler who seeks to enter the country.