Horace

Quotes

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.
He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
If you wish me to weep, you must mourn first yourself.
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
Whatever advice you give, be brief.
Life is largely a matter of expectation.
Mediocrity is not allowed to poets, either by the gods or man.
There is measure in all things.
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.
Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Cease to ask what the morrow will bring forth. And set down as gain each day that Fortune grants.
Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow!
[Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.]
In adversity remember to keep an even mind.
Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.
Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but all are overwhelmed in eternal night, unwept, unknown, because they lack a sacred poet.
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.
To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, but any means money.
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!
The covetous man is ever in want.
Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.
Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.
It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.
He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure.
I will not add another word.
Faults are soon copied.
The appearance of right oft leads us wrong.
With silence favor me.
(Favete Linguis)
There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.
Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.