The Quotes canon

Sourced and curated.

Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. — Socrates · 240How many things I can do without! — Socrates · 399 BCHappy the man who, far away from business, like the race of men of old, tills his ancestral fields with his own oxen, unbound by any interest to pay. — Horace · 30 BCNo person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have. — Seneca · 65This was among my prayers: a piece of land not so very large, where a garden should be and a spring of ever-flowing water near the house, and a bit of woodland as well as these. — Horace · 30 BC
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. — Thomas Gray · 1751