Horace Quotes

What exile from his country is able to escape from himself?

God has joined the innocent with the guilty.

The great virtue of parents is a great dowry.

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

He appears mad indeed but to a few, because the majority is infected with the same disease.

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

Gloriously false. [Like Rahab.]

I was what you are, you will be what I am.

The populace may hiss me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself.

Whatever you advise, be as brief as possible.

I shall not altogether die.

Virtue lies half way between two opposite vices.

Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest he fail in the lists and the spectators laugh.

Seest thou how pale the sated guest rises from supper, where the appetite is puzzled with varieties? The body, too, burdened with I yesterday's excess, weighs down the soul, and fixes to the earth this particle of the divine essence.

As a neighboring funeral terrifies sick misers, and fear obliges them to have some regard for themselves; so, the disgrace of others will often deter tender minds from vice.

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

We are free to yield to truth.

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise -begin!

Welcome will arrived, the hour that was not hoped for.

He can afford to be a fool.

My liver swells with bile difficult to repress.

My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.

Ah Fortune, what god is more cruel to us than thou! How thou delightest ever to make sport of human life!

The same (hated) man will be loved after he's dead. How quickly we forget.

Life is largely a matter of expectation.

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

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

Fools through false shame, conceal their open wounds.

Drawing is the true test of art.

Luck cannot change birth.

Force without judgement falls on its own weight.

What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.

Despise not sweet inviting love-making nor the merry dance.

Those that are little, little things suit.

What's well begun is half done.

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

I would not exchange my life of ease and quiet for the riches of Arabia.

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

In avoiding one vice fools rush into the opposite extreme.

Care clings to wealth: the thirst for more Grows as our fortunes grow.

Joking apart, now let us be serious.

Labor diligently to increase your property.

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability.

There is no such thing as perfect happiness.

I teach that all men are mad.

Envy is not to be conquered but by death.

Remember you must die whether you sit about moping all day long or whether on feast days you stretch out in a green field, happy with a bottle of Falernian from your innermost cellar.