Horace Quotes
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading lyric poet in Latin.
- Philosophers
- Poets
- Satirists
Also known as: Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Random Horace quote
314 quotes
For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt your eyes, but if anything gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it from year to year?
Epistles (-20)
Sagacious in making useful discoveries.
The scattered remnants of the poet.
Punishment follows close on crime.
What's well begun, is half done.
Humble things become the humble.
That man lives happy and in command of himself, who from day to day can say I have lived. Whether clouds obscure, or the sun illumines the following day, that which is past is beyond recall.
Leuconoë, close the book of fate,
For troubles are in store,
* * * *
Live today, tomorrow is not.
In grave beginnings, and great things profest
You have oft-times, that may out-shine the rest,
A purple piece, or two stitch'd in: ...
All votes he gains who can unite
Profit with pleasure, and delight
His reader’s fancy, all the time
He gives instruction couched in rhyme.
The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.
Odes (-23)
So live, my boys, as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
Satires (-35)
Here, shelter'd by a friendly tree,
In Teian measures you shall sing
Bright Circe and Penelope,
Love-smitten both by one sharp sting.
Who then is free? the wise man who is lord over himself;
Whom neither poverty nor death, nor chains alarm; strong to withstand his passions and despise honors, and who is completely finished and rounded off in himself.
We aim at the ideal, and fail. I try
To be concise, and end in being obscure.
The Jew Apella may believe this, not I.
Mine be the whetstone’s lot
Which makes steel sharp, though cut itself will not.
Although no writer, I may yet impart
To writing folk the precepts of their art.
I sing for maidens and boys.
Odes (-23)
Leave all else to the gods.
Odes (-23)
We are but dust and shadow.
Odes (-23)