Horace - Ars Poetica

33 Sourced Quotes

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The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.

Horace
'Painters and poets alike have always had licence to dare anything.' We know that, and we both claim and permit others this indulgence.

Horace
He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure, by delighting and instructing the reader at the same time.

Horace
Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born.

Horace
Many terms which have now dropped out of favour will be revived, and those that are at present respectable will drop out, if usage so choose, with whom lies the decision, the judgement, and the rule of speech.

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

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

Horace
Often a purple patch or two is tacked on to a serious work of high promise, to give an effect of color.

Horace
Not gods, nor men, nor even booksellers have put up with poets being second-rate.

Horace
So that what is a beautiful woman on top ends in a black and ugly fish.

Horace
None knows the reason why this curse
Was sent on him, this love of making verse.

Horace
His thinking does not produce smoke after the flame, but light after smoke.

Horace
Scholars dispute, and the case is still before the courts.

Horace
Struggling to be brief I become obscure.

Horace
You should turn the pages of your Greek models by night and by day.

Horace
Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill The hearer's soul, and move it at its will.

Horace
You may turn nature out of doors with violence, but she will still return.

Horace
He throws aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

Horace
You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one seem original.

Horace
For nature forms our spirits to receive Each bent that outward circumstance can give: She kindles pleasure, bids resentment glow, Or bows the soul to earth in hopeless woe.

Horace
When many beauties grace a poem, I shall not take offence at a few faults.

Horace
It has ever been, and ever will be, permitted to issue words stamped with the mint-mark of the day. As forests change their leaves with each year's decline, and the earliest drop off: so with words, the old race dies, and like the young of human kind, the new-born bloom and thrive.

Horace
Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers.

Horace
It is hard to utter common notions in an individual way.

Horace
If you want me to weep, you must first feel grief yourself.

Horace