Horace (65 BC-8 BC)

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."

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.

Work
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.

Death
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.

Adversity
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.

Wisdom
With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.