Horace Quotes

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

When we try to avoid one fault, we are led to the opposite, unless we be very careful.

He who has lost his money-belt will go where you wish.

What we hear strikes the mind with less force than what we see.

Fortune makes a fool of those she favors too much.

Pale death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and king's palaces.

Anger is a short madness.

Once sent out, a word takes wings beyond recall.

Virtue, dear friend, needs no defense,
The surest guard is innocence:
None knew, till guilt created fear,
What darts or poisoned arrows were

So, if you don't summon a book and a light before dawn,
If you don't set your mind on honest aims and pursuits,
On waking, you'll be tortured by envy or lust.
Why so quick to remove a speck from your eye, when
If it's your mind, you put off the cure till next year?
Who's started has half finished: dare to be wise: begin!

Busy idleness urges us on.
[Lat., Strenua nos exercet inertia.]

He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others.

Stronger than thunder's winged force All-powerful gold can speed its course; Through watchful guards its passage make, And loves through solid walls to break.

What you have not published, you can destroy. The word once sent forth can never be recalled.

We are deceived by the appearance of right.

Poverty urges us to do and suffer anything that we may escape from it, and so leads us away from virtue.

He is always a slave who cannot live on little.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

When putting words together is good to do it with nicety and caution, your elegance and talent will be evident if by putting ordinary words together you create a new voice.

On day is pressed on by another.

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

A corrupt judge does not carefully search for the truth.

The ear of the bridled horse is in the mouth.

Wine brings to light the hidden secrets of the soul.

Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur.
If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all.

Increasing wealth is attended by care and by the desire of greater increase.

It is not enough that poetry is agreeable, it should also be interesting.

He is not poor who has a competency.

If matters go badly now, they will not always be so.

Anger is a brief madness: govern your mind [temper], for unless it obeys it commands.

The short span of life forbids us to spin out hope to any length. Soon will night be upon you, and the fabled Shades, and the shadowy Plutonian home.

The arrow will not always find the mark intended.

Joyful let the soul be in the present, let it disdain to trouble about what is beyond and temper bitterness with a laugh. Nothing is blessed forever.

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

Not to be lost in idle admiration is the only sure means of making and preserving happiness.

Had the crow only fed without cawing she would have had more to eat, and much less of strife and envy to contend with. [To noise abroad our success is to invite envy and competition.]

For example, the tiny ant, a creature of great industry, drags with its mouth whatever it can, and adds it to the heap which she is piling up, not unaware nor careless of the future.

No one is content with his own lot.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

A cultivated wit, one that badgers less, can persuade all the more. Artful ridicule can address contentious issues more competently and vigorously than can severity alone.

The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.

The changing year's successive plan Proclaims mortality to man.

Scribblers are a self-conceited and self-worshipping race.

Shun an inquisitive man, he is invariably a tell-tale.

Death is the last limit of all things.

We get blows and return them.

No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.

Get money first; virtue comes after.

Deep in the cavern of the infant's breast; the father's nature lurks, and lives anew.

If you drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will soon find a way back.

O imitators, you slavish herd!

All singers have this fault: if asked to sing among friends they are never so inclined; if unasked, they never leave off.

For my part, whether sailing in cruiser or dinghy, I shall remain myself. My sails are not puffed out with the north wind in my favour, nor am I beating into the southern gales of affliction.

A word once uttered can never be recalled.

Fiction intended to please, should resemble truth as much as possible.

To carry timber into the wood.
[Lat., In silvam ligna ferre.]

A poem is like a painting.

The wolf dreads the pitfall, the hawk suspects the snare, and the kite the covered hook.

Marble statues, engraved with public inscriptions, by which the life and soul return after death to noble leaders.

Never without a shilling in my purse.

What has this unfeeling age of ours left untried, what wickedness has it shunned?

Amiability shines by its own light.

Nos numeros sumus et fruges consumere nati. We are but ciphers, born to consume earth's fruits.

Those who covet much suffer from the want.

To please great men is not the last degree of praise.

And take back ill-polished stanzas to the anvil.

Those that are little, little things suit.

It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion.

He tells old wives' tales much to the point.

Lightning strikes the tops of the mountains.

Gold delights to walk through the very midst of the guard, and to break its way through hard rocks, more powerful in its blow than lightning.

He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.

It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.

The avarice person is ever in want; let your desired aim have a fixed limit.

I court not the votes of the fickle mob.

You may see me, fat and shining, with well-cared for hide, ... a hog from Epicurus' herd.
[Lat., Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises,
... Epicuri de grege porcum.]

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

Those unacquainted with the world take pleasure in intimacy with great men; those who are wiser fear the consequences.

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

While fools shun one set of faults they run into the opposite one.

Whatever things injure your eye you are anxious to remove; but things which affect your mind you defer.

Weigh well what your shoulders can and cannot bear.

The brave are born from the brave and good. In steers and in horses is to be found the excellence of their sire; nor do savage eagles produce a peaceful dove.

Who has self-confidence will lead the rest.

There is nothing hard inside the olive; nothing hard outside the nut.

I strive to be brief, and become obscure.

Remember to be calm in adversity.

Poetry is like painting: one piece takes your fancy if you stand close to it, another if you keep at some distance.

Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.

The mountains are in labour, the birth will be an absurd little mouse.

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

However rich or elevated, a name less something is always wanting to our imperfect fortune.

The shame of fools conceals their open wounds.
[Lat., Stultorum incurata malus pudor ulcera celat.]

Justice, though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.
[Lat., Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede poena claudo.]

Alas! the fleeting years, how they roll on!

It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.

At Rome I love Tibur; then, like a weathercock, at Tibur Rome.

The short span of life forbids us to take on far-reaching hopes.

Grammatici certant et adhuc sub iudice lis est. - Grammarians dispute, and the case it still before the courts.

In truth it is best to learn wisdom, and abandoning all nonsense, to leave it to boys to enjoy their season of play and mirth.