Horace Quotes

222 Sourced Quotes

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.

Horace
Gloriously perjured, a maiden famous to all time.

Horace
Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow!

Horace
Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but all are overwhelmed in eternal night, unwept, unknown, because they lack a sacred poet.

Horace
The Muse gave the Greeks their native character, and allowed them to speak in noble tones, they who desired nothing but praise.

Horace
Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.

Horace
We belabour each other, and with tit for tat use up our foe, like Samnites, in a long-drawn bout, till the first lamps are lighted.
Of literary battles

Horace
Drop the question what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you.

Horace
For it is your business, when the wall next door catches fire.

Horace
It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.

Horace
What he fears he cannot make attractive with his touch he abandons.

Horace
If the world should break and fall on him, it would strike him fearless.

Horace
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.

Horace
Ah me, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting years are slipping by.

Horace
You ask me why a soft numbness diffuses all my inmost senses with deep oblivion, as though with thirsty throat I'd drained the cup that brings the sleep of Lethe.

Horace
Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be, And think each day that dawns the last you'll see; For so the hour that greets you unforeseen Will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.

Horace
But you, though in the very shadow of death, place contracts for cutting marble slabs, and build houses without giving a thought to your tomb.

Horace
Force, unaided by judgement, collapses through its own weight.

Horace
Whatever madness their kings commit, the Greeks take the beating.

Horace
A grudging and infrequent worshipper of the gods.

Horace
Let a play have five acts, neither more nor less.

Horace
In Rome you long for the country; in the country— oh inconstant! —you praise the distant city to the stars.

Horace
How light, how small is the thing which casts down or restores a mind greedy for praise.

Horace
The mind enamored with deceptive things, declines things better.

Horace
A host is like a general: misfortunes often reveal his genius.

Horace
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.

Horace
Look round and round the man you recommend, For yours will be the shame should he offend.

Horace
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.

Horace
I hate the common herd of men and keep them
afar. Let there be sacred silence: I, the Muses' priest, sing for girls and boys songs not heard before.

Horace
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!

Horace