Horace Quotes

In neglected fields the fern grows, which must be cleared out by fire.

Nothing is swifter than rumor.

Sometimes even excellent Homer nods.

He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world.

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

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

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

Capture the day, put minimum trust on tomorrow.

Money, as it increases, becomes either the master or the slave of ts owner.

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

Riches either serve or govern the possessor.

If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first feel grief.

He who sings the praises of his boyhood's days.

Desiring things widely different for their various tastes.

A good scare is worth more than good advice.

Youth is unduly busy with pampering the outer person.

Having no business of his own to attend to, he busies himself with the affairs of others.

Be modest in speech, but excel in action.

Wherein is the use of getting rid of one thorn out of many?

No man ever properly calculates from time to time what it is his duty to avoid.

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.

Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points.

There are lessons to be learned from a stupid man.

He has hay upon his horn. [He is a mischievous person.]

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

The just man having a firm grasp of his intentions, neither the heated passions of his fellow men ordaining something awful, nor a tyrant staring him in the face, will shake in his convictions.

Mingle a little folly with your wisdom; a little nonsense now and then is pleasant. [Lat., Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem: Dulce est desipere in loco.

Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start

For, once begun, Your task is easy; half the work is done.

We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.

Drop the question of what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you.

He, who has blended the useful with the sweet, has gained every point .

I praise her (Fortune) while she lasts; if she shakes her quick wings, I resign what she has given, and take refuge in my own virtue, and seek honest undowered Poverty.

It makes a great difference whether Davus or a hero speaks.

The cook cares not a bit for toil, toil, if the fowl be plump and fat

It is grievous to be caught.

I court not the votes of the fickle mob.

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

Knowledge without education is but armed injustice.

The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; High towers fall with a heavier crash; And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.

A cup concealed in the dress is rarely honestly carried.

Happy and thrice happy are those who enjoy an uninterrupted union, and whose love, unbroken by any sour complaints, shall not dissolve until the last day of their existence.

Punishment closely follows guilt as its companion.

My age, my inclinations, are no longer what they were.

Superfluous advice is not retained by the full mind.

Often you must turn your stylus to erase, if you hope to write anything worth a second reading.

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

To have begun is half the job; be bold and be sensible.