Horace Quotes

In an evil hour thou bring'st her home. [You are marrying a shrew.]

The higher the tower, the greater the fall thereof.

No man ever reached to excellence in any one art or profession without having passed through the slow and painful process of study and preparation.

Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.

He who is always in a hurry to be wealthy and immersed in the study of augmenting his fortune has lost the arms of reason and deserted the post of virtue.

While I am sane I shall compare nothing to the joy of a friend.

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness.

Live as brave men and face adversity with stout hearts.

Govern your temper, which will rule you unless kept in subjection.

Clogged with yesterday's excess, the body drags the mind down with it.

Why then should words challenge Eternity, When greatest men, and greatest actions die? Use may revive the obsoletest words, And banish those that now are most in vogue; Use is the judge, the law, and rule of speech.

A person will gain everyone's approval if he mixes the pleasant with the useful.

The tendency of humanity is towards the forbidden.

We get blows and return them.

Sweet and glorious it is to die for our country.

The man who is just and resolute will not be moved from his settled purpose, either by the misdirected rage of his fellow citizens, or by the threats of an imperious tryant.

In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.

The earth opens impartially her bosom to receive the beggar and the prince.

It is not permitted that we should know everything.

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.

Happy he who far from business, like the primitive are of mortals, cultivates with his own oxen the fields of his fathers, free from all anxieties of gain.

Most virtue lies between two vices.

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

Death is the last limit of all things.

You may suppress natural propensities by force, but they will be certain to re-appear.

Much is wanting to those who seek or covet much.

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

Whatever you want to teach, be brief.

In adversity be spirited and firm, and with equal prudence lessen your sail when filled with a too fortunate gale of prosperity.

The covetous person is full of fear; and he or she who lives in fear will ever be a slave.

In trying to be concise I become obscure.

The body oppressed by excesses bears down the mind, and depresses to the earth any portion of the divine spirit we had been endowed with.

Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.

Punishment follows close on crime.

Riches are first to be sought for; after wealth, virtue.

As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it

By heaven you have destroyed me, my friends!

He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure.

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

Don't just put it off and think about it!

I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

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

Let him who has once perceived how much that, which has been discarded, excels that which he has longed for, return at once, and seek again that which he despised.

Here, or nowhere, is the thing we seek.

Difficulties elicit talents that in more fortunate circumstances would lie dormant.

Those who cross the sea, change sky, but not soul.

Wealth increaseth, but a nameless something is ever wanting to our insufficient fortune.

I abhor the profane rabble and keep them at a distance.