Horace Quotes

Despise pleasure; pleasure bought by pain in injurious.

Often a purple patch or two is tacked on to a serious work of high promise, to give an effect of colour.

For a man learns more quickly and remembers more easily that which he laughs at, than that which he approves and reveres.

If you study the history and records of the world you must admit that the source of justice was the fear of injustice.

The man who thinks with Horace thinks divine.

God can change the lowest to the highest, abase the proud, and raise the humble.

Knowledge without education is but armed injustice.

Let me posses what I now have, or even less, so that I may enjoy my remaining days, if Heaven grant any to remain.

Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.

Your property is in danger when your neighbour's house is on fire.

Though your threshing floor grind a hundred thousand bushels of corn, not for that reason will your stomach hold more than mine.

The ox longs for the gaudy trappings of the horse; the lazy pack-horse would fain plough. [We envy the position of others, dissatisfied with our own.]

Death is the last limit of all things.

It is not enough for poems to be beautiful; they must be affecting, and must lead the heart of the hearer as they will.

Drive Nature out with a pitchfork, yet she hurries back, And will burst through your foolish contempt, triumphant.

He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

Blind self-love, vanity, lifting aloft her empty head, and indiscretion, prodigal of secrets more transparent than glass, follow close behind.

Let your mind, happily contented with the present, care not what the morrow will bring with it.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

Anger is short-lived madness.

Anger is momentary madness.

Summer treads on heels of spring.

You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

The work you are treating is one full of dangerous hazard, and you are treading over fires lurking beneath treacherous ashes.

In trying to be concise I become obscure.

No, but you're wrong now, and always will be.

Those that are little, little things suit.

Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.

Do not try to find out - we're forbidden to know - what end the gods have in store for me, or for you.

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

What may not be altered is made lighter by patience.

Nor has he lived in vain, who from his cradle to his grave has passed his life in seclusion.

You may thresh a hundred thousand bushels of grain, / But more than mine your belly will not contain.

When a man is pleased with the lot of others, he is dissatisfied with his own, as a matter of course.

We hate virtue when it is safe; when removed from our sight we diligently seek it.

Who knows if the gods above will add tomorrow's span to this day's sum?

Limbs of a dismembered poet.

Fire, if neglected, will soon gain strength.

Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy.

Let this be your wall of brass, to have nothing on your conscience, no guilt to make you turn pale.

You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one seem original.

Little folks become their little fate.

Heir follows heir, as wave succeeds to wave.

We are more speedily and fatally corrupted by domestic examples of vice, and particularly when they are impressed on our minds as from authority.

You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person.

Wise were the kings who never chose a friend till with full cups they had unmasked his soul, and seen the bottom of his deepest thoughts.

A pauper in the midst of wealth.

Whatever hour God has blessed you with, take it with a grateful hand.

In labouring to be brief, I become obscure.

For everything divine and human, virtue, fame, and honor, now obey the alluring influence of riches.

Whom does undeserved honour please, and undeserved blame alarm, but the base and the liar?

The wolf attacks with his fang, the bull with his horn.

Most virtue lies between two vices.

What with your friend you nobly share, At least you rescue from your heir.

He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

Cease to admire the smoke, wealth, and noise of prosperous Rome.

The question is yet before the court.

Better one thorn pluck'd out than all remain.

The body, enervated by the excesses of the preceding day, weighs down and prostates the mind also.

Either stick to tradition or see that your inventions be consistent.

Ah Fortune, what god is more cruel to us than thou! How thou delightest ever to make sport of human life!

God has joined the innocent with the guilty.

What exile from his country is able to escape from himself?

Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow.

There are words and accents by which this grief can be assuaged, and the disease in a great measure removed.

Be prepared to go mad with fixed rule and method.

A noble pair of brothers.
[Lat., Par nobile fratum.]

To marvel at nothing is just about the one and only thing, Numicius, that can make a man happy and keep him that way.

Much is wanting to those who seek or covet much.

If virtue holds the secret, don't defer; Be off with pleasure, and be on with her.

The explanation avails nothing, which in leading us from one difficulty involves us in another.

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

I hate the irreverent rabble and keep them far from me.

Mighty to inspire new hopes, and able to drown the bitterness of cares.

Whom has not the inspiring bowl made eloquent?
[Lat., Foecundi calices quem non fecere disertum.]

Though you strut proud of your money, yet fortune has not changed your birth.
[Lat., Licet superbus ambules pecuniae,
Fortuna non mutat genus.]

If it is well with your belly, chest and feet - the wealth of kings can't give you more.

Never without a shilling in my purse.

Man learns more readily and remembers more willingly what excites his ridicule than what deserves esteem and respect.

Pleasure bought with pain does harm.

Being, be bold and venture to be wise.

Even in animals there exists the spirit of their sires.

I strive to be brief, and become obscure.

He who preserves a man's life against his will does the same thing as if he slew him.

In a moment comes either death or joyful victory.
[Lat., Horae
Momento cita mors venit aut victoria laeta.]

Sovereign money procures a wife with a large fortune, gets a man credit, creates friends, stands in place of pedigree, and even of beauty.

Gladly accept the gifts of the present hour.

A bad reader soon puts to flight both wise men and fools.

Take heed lest you stumble.

Avoid inquisitive persons, for they are sure to be gossips, their ears are open to hear, but they will not keep what is entrusted to them.

Sometimes even excellent Homer nods.

On day is pressed on by another.

Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.

Not to hope for things to last forever, is what the year teaches and even the hour which snatches a nice day away.

With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.

A word once let out of the cage cannot be whistled back again.

Hired mourners at a funeral say and do - A little more than they whose grief is true

Not to create confusion in what is clear, but to throw light on what is obscure.