Horace Quotes
Seize the day "Carpe diem": trust not to the morrow.
Horace
(Odes - Book I, 23 BCE)
Faults are soon copied.
Life's brief span forbids us to enter on far-reaching hopes.
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.
This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.
Glory drags all men along, low as well as high, bound captive at the wheels of her glittering car.
He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.
The sky changes, not the soul, for whom travels the sea.
I will not add another word.
Whatever advice you give, be brief.
You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.
Be brave in trouble; meet distress
With dauntless front; but when the gale
Too prosperous blows, be wise no less,
And shorten sail.
In the word of no master am I bound to believe.
Variant: I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.
Help a man against his will and you do the same as murder him.
Let me possess what I now have, or even less, so that I may enjoy my remaining days, if Heaven grant any to remain.
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.
Variant: The man of firm and righteous will,
No rabble, clamorous for the wrong,
No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill,
Can shake the strength that makes him strong.
Variant: One man with courage makes a majority.
The man who makes the attempt justly aims at honour and reward.
Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
I have reared a memorial more enduring than brass, and loftier than the regal structure of the pyramids, which neither the corroding shower nor the powerless north wind can destroy; no, not even unending years nor the flight of time itself. I shall not entirely die. The greater part of me shall escape oblivion.
Cease to ask what the morrow will hold and count as gain each day that Fortune grants.
No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.
The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.
A host is like a general: calamities often reveal his genius.
Dare to be wise!
The appearance of right oft leads us wrong.
Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach,
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune's power;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.
Who then is sane? He who is not a fool.
To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
Variant: To fly from vice is virtue: to be free
From foolishness is wisdom's first degree.
Finally, your lengthy service ended,
Lay your weariness beneath my laurel tree.
He is not poor who has enough of things to use. If it is well with your belly, chest and feet, the wealth of kings can give you nothing more.
It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.
It is hard! But what can not be removed, becomes lighter through patience.
Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
Anger is a brief lunacy.
Variant: Anger is momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.
Variant: Anger is short-lived madness.
As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.
If you wish me to weep, you yourself
Must first feel grief.
Variant: If you wish me to weep, you must mourn first yourself.
I teach that all are men are mad.
Do you count your years with gratitude?
Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.
Sometimes 'tis grateful for the rich to try
A short vicissitude, and fit of poverty:
A savory dish, a homely treat,
Where all is plain, where all is neat,
Without the stately spacious room,
The Persian carpet, or the Tyrian loom,
Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.
Leave all else to the gods.
He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.
It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods, to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.
There is measure in all things.
Alas, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting years slip by.
Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.
Wherever the storm carries me, I go a willing guest.
The covetous man is ever in want.
You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she'll be constantly running back.
I strive to be brief but I become obscure.
Variant: Struggling to be brief I become obscure.
It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country.
Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
Variant:
In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.
He, that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Imbitt'ring all his state.
Never despair.
He gains everyone's approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.
Variant: He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure, by delighting and instructing the reader at the same time.
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.
Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year?
Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.
Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings.
Variant: Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
We are but dust and shadow.
