Horace Quotes

Everything, virtue, glory, honor, things human and divine, all are slaves to riches.

If things look badly to-day they may look better tomorrow.

Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

The good refrain from sin from the pure love of virtue.

Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but, all unwept and unknown, are lost in the distant night, since they are without a divine poet (to chronicle their deeds).

Seize the day [Carpe diem]: trust not to the morrow.

He will often have to scratch his head, and bite his nails to the quick. [To succeed he will have to puzzle his brains and work hard.]

A hungry stomach rarely despises common food.

Dull winter will re-appear.

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

Come boy, and pour for me a cup Of old Falernian. Fill it up With wine, strong, sparkling, bright, and clear; Our host decrees no water here. Let dullards drink the Nymph's pale brew, The sluggish thin their blood with dew. For such pale stuff we have no use; For us the purple grape's rich juice. Begone, ye chilling water sprite; Here burning Bacchus rules tonight! Catullus, Selections From Catullus No poems can live long or please that are written by water-drinkers.

The hour of happiness which comes unexpectedly is the happiest.

And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop To the low mimic follies of a farce, As a grave matron would to dance with girls.

He has carried every point, who has combined that which is useful with that which is agreeable.

Silver is of less value than gold, gold than virtue.

The mad is either insane or he is composing verses.

What impropriety or limit can there be in our grief for a man so beloved?.

The jackdaw, stript of her stolen colours, provokes our laughter.

Friends fly away when the cask has been drained to the dregs.

There are calumnies against which even innocence loses courage.

In hard times, no less than in prosperity, preserve equanimity.

Content with his past life, let him take leave of life like a satiated guest.

Summer treads on heels of spring.

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

In the same [hospitable] manner that a Calabrian would press you to eat his pears.

Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

We are just statistics, born to consume resources.

Fierce eagles breed not the tender dove.

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

You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.

It is hard to utter common notions in an individual way.

Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.

Every old poem is sacred.

Those who seek for much are left in want of much. Happy is he to whom God has given, with sparing hand, as much as is enough.

You will not rightly call him a happy man who possesses much; he more rightly earns the name of happy who is skilled in wisely using the gifts of the gods, and in suffering hard poverty, and who fears disgrace as worse than death.

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

This was my prayer: an adequate portion of land with a garden and a spring of water and a small wood to complete the picture.

Without love and laughter there is no joy; live amid love and laughter.

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

Be this thy brazen bulwark, to keep a clear conscience, and never turn pale with guilt.

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque revenit. You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will nevertheless come back.

Unless the vessel be pure, everything which is poured into it will turn sour.

Enjoy the present day, trust the least possible to the future.

That I make poetry and give pleasure - if I give pleasure - are because of you.

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

Never despair while under the guidance and auspices of Teucer.

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.