Classic words to reflect on

life is short; we must endeavour to gain the present time with best discretion and justice.

That which is not good for the bee-hive, cannot be good for the bee.

Remember, that to change thy mind upon occasion, and to follow him that is able to rectify thee, is equally ingenuous, as to find out at the first, what is right and just, without help.

Think thyself fit and worthy to speak, or to do anything that is according to nature,

Remember that all is but opinion and conceit,

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good,

A man cannot any whither retire better than to his own soul;

In the morning when thou findest thyself unwilling to rise, consider with thyself presently, it is to go about a man's work that I am stirred up.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

To define is to limit.

All influence is immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view.

An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.

Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,

It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact:

The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.