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1. Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.
2. Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.
3. Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.
4. As regards parents, I should like to see them as highly educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone.
5. The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.
6. Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.
7. It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.
8. Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.
9. In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
10. Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.
11. It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.
12. Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.
13. It is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing.
14. Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
15. Fear of the future is worse than one’s present fortune.
16. It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.
17. Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
18. The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.
19. The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.
20. That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.