Horace quotes
Horace (65 BC–8 BC): Roman lyric poet. The library holds 522 quotes by Horace, drawn from Ars Poetica, Satires, In reproof of those who lay by large stores and never use them and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, time, faith, nature, money, art
The best-known Horace quotes
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Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
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The more a man denies himself the more he shall obtain from God.
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Greece, conquered herself, in turn conquered her uncivilised conqueror, and imported her arts into rusticated Latium.
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As long as I have my senses, there is nothing I would prefer to an agreeable friend.
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Each learns more readily, and retains more willingly, what makes him laugh than what he approves of and respects.
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He who has chosen a theme suited to his powers will never be at a loss for felicitous language or lucid arrangement.
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It still remains for you to go where Numa has gone, and Ancus before you.
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Have a rule apportioning to each offence its appropriate penalty.
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To them (the gods) ascribe every undertaking, to them the issue.
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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.
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I see not what good can come from study without a rich vein of genius, or from genius untrained by art.
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The merchant, dreading the south-west wind wrestling with the Icarian waves, praises retirement and the rural life of his native town, but soon he repairs his shattered bark, incapable of being taught to endure poverty.
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Doctors practise what belongs to doctors, workmen handle the tools they have been trained to, but all of us everywhere, trained and untrained, alike write verses.
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In my dwelling no ivory gleams, nor fretted roof covered with gold.
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The impartial earth opens alike for the child of the pauper and of the king.
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It is difficult to handle a common theme with originality.
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The camp and the clang of the trumpet mingled with the clarion, and wars detested by mothers, have delights for many.
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It is not every man that can get to Corinth, i.e., rise in the world.
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The gods be praised for having made me of a poor and humble mind, with a desire to speak but seldom and briefly.
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Joys do not fall to the rich alone; nor has he lived ill of whose birth and death no one took note.
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He has (like a wild bull) a wisp of hay on his horn: fly afar from him; if only he raise a laugh for himself, there is no friend he would spare.
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Whatsoever devilry kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper.
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I account it a great honour that I have pleased a man like you, who know so well to discriminate between the base and the honourable.
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These things I revolve by myself with compressed lips, When I have any leisure, I amuse myself with my writings.
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Who then is free? He who is wisely lord of himself, whom neither poverty, nor death, nor bonds terrify, who is strong to resist his appetites and despise honours, and is complete in himself, smooth and round like a globe.
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But instruction improves the innate powers, and good discipline strengthens the heart.
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Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.
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My care and study is what is true and becoming, and in this I am wholly absorbed.
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The work you are treating is one full of dangerous hazard, and you are treading over fires lurking beneath treacherous ashes.
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There is a mean in all things; there are, in fine, certain fixed limits, on either side of which what is right and true cannot exist.
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The years as they pass bereave us first of one thing and then another.
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Control your temper, for if it does not obey you, it will govern you.
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This day, for me a true holiday, shall banish gloomy cares.
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By subduing an avaricious spirit you will rule a wider empire than if you united Lybia to the far-off Gades, and the Carthaginian on both shores should be subject to you alone.
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What do sad complaints avail if the offence is not cut down by punishment?
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Do you count your birthdays thankfully? forgive your friends? grow gentler and better with advancing age?
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He has mastered all points who has combined the useful with the agreeable.
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Those who are unacquainted with the world take pleasure in the intimacy of great men; those who are wiser dread the consequences.
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By what noose shall I hold this Proteus who is ever changing his shape?
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The crow, stript of its stolen colours, provokes our ridicule.
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Care accompanies increasing wealth, and a craving for still greater riches.
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Good sense is both the first principle and parent-source of good writing.
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The wag runs away and leaves me with the knife at my throat, i.e., to be sacrificed.
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There are few, I say, to whom this fellow should appear insane, since by far the majority of people are infected with the same malady.
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Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.
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Bound to swear by the opinions of no master, I present myself a guest wherever the storm drives me.
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For neither regal treasure, nor the consul’s lictor, nor the cares that hover about fretted ceilings, can remove the unhappy tumults of the mind.
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This is a general fault of all singers, that among their friends they never make up their minds to sing, however pressed; but when no one asks them, they will never leave off.
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To him whose soul is more than ordinarily divine, and who has the gift of uttering lofty thoughts, you may justly concede the honourable title of poet.
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A leech that will not leave the skin until it is gorged with blood.
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Both my language and my sentiments differ widely from theirs.
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The man whom prosperity too much delights will be most shocked by reverses.
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If you wish me to weep, you must first show grief yourself.
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You will live more prudently, Licinius, by neither always keeping out at sea, nor, while you warily shrink from storms, hugging too closely the treacherous shore.
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One wanders to the left, another to the right; both are equally in error, but are seduced by different delusions.
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For the wary wolf dreads the pitfall, the hawk the suspected snare, and the fish the concealed hook.
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Nevertheless, even envy, however unwilling, will have to admit that I have lived among great men.
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Let him who for his share has enough wish for nothing more.
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May I continue to possess what I have now, or even less; so I may live the remainder of my days after my own plan, if the gods will that any should remain.
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The mountains will be in labour; an absurd mouse will be born.
Ars Poetica. 139
Where these quotes come from
- Ars Poetica (3 quotes)
- Satires (2 quotes)
- In reproof of those who lay by large stores and never use them (1 quote)
- Epistles (1 quote)
- For the miser (1 quote)
- Of a dramatic poet (1 quote)
- Book (1 quote)
- Bk (1 quote)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .