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Horace on Birthday

← All quotes by Horace

18 quotes

To have a great man for an intimate friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.

Epistles (-20)

Now is the time for drinking, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth.

Odes (-23)

Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.

In the hour's short space comes swift death, or joyful victory.

Enjoy the present day, trusting very little to the morrow.

Either a peaceful old age awaits me, or death flies round me with black wings.

As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.

Odes (-23)

While we are speaking envious time will have fled. Seize the present day.

Avoid greatness; in a cottage there may be more real happiness than kings or their favorites enjoy.

It is time for thee to be gone, lest the age more decent in its wantonness should laugh at thee and drive thee off the stage.

Let the fictitious sources of pleasure be as near as possible to the true.

Despise pleasure; pleasure bought by pain is injurious.

Each passing year robs us of some possession.

I live and reign since I have abandoned those pleasures which you by your praises extol to the skies.

What does not destructive time destroy?

Postumus, Postumus, the years glide by us:
Alas! no piety delays the wrinkles,
Nor the indomitable hand of Death.

Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men,
Nor men the weak anxieties of age.

You will not rightly call him a happy man who possesses much; he more rightly earns the name of happy who is skilled in wisely using the gifts of the gods, and in suffering hard poverty, and who fears disgrace as worse than death.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Horace (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.