Horace Quotes

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

Never inquire into another man's secret; bur conceal that which is intrusted to you, though pressed both be wine and anger to reveal it.

All else-valor, a good name, glory, everything in heaven and earth-is secondary to the charm of riches.

Necessity takes impartially the highest and the lowest.

With self-discipline most anything is possible. Theodore Roosevelt Rule your mind or it will rule you.

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

We are often deterred from crime by the disgrace of others.

Frugality is one thing, avarice another.

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

Why harass with eternal purposes a mind to weak to grasp them?

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

I have to submit to much in order to pacify the touchy tribe of poets.

Riches with their wicked inducements increase; nevertheless, avarice is never satisfied.

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

He who is greedy is always in want.

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

Whatever advice you give, be short.

An envious man grows lean at another's fatness.

One musts avoid that wicked temptress, Laziness.

Strength without judgment falls by its own weight.

The things, that are repeated again and again, are pleasant.

Don't yield to that alluring witch, laziness, or else be prepared to surrender all that you have won in your better moments.

Our years Glide silently away. No tears, No loving orisons repair The wrinkled cheek, the whitening hair That drop forgotten to the tomb.

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

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

The common people are but ill judges of a man's merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them.

As many men as there are existing, so many are their different pursuits.

Hidden knowledge differs little from ignorance.

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

A good and faithful judge ever prefers the honorable to the expedient.

The drunkard is convicted by his praises of wine.

Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.

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

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

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

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

A wise God shrouds the future in obscure darkness.

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.

The bowl dispels corroding cares.

I have raised for myself a monument more durable than brass.

A greater liar than the Parthians.

In the word of no master am I bound to believe.

The whole race of scribblers flies from the town and yearns for country life.

To drink away sorrow.

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar - that I call an achievement.

Change but the name, and you are the subject of the story.

A word once uttered can never be recalled.

Not even for an hour can you bear to be alone, nor can you advantageously apply your leisure time, but you endeavor, a fugitive and wanderer, to escape from yourself, now vainly seeking to banish remorse by wine, and now by sleep; but the gloomy companion presses on you, and pursues you as you fly.