Horace Quotes

When we try to avoid one fault, we are led to the opposite, unless we be very careful.

No man is born without faults.

Difficulties elicit talents that in more fortunate circumstances would lie dormant.

Be prepared to go mad with fixed rule and method.

I would not exchange my life of ease and quiet for the riches of Arabia.

Drive Nature from your door with a pitchfork, and she will return again and again.

Let every man find pleasure in practising the profession he has learnt.

Frugality is one thing, avarice another.

Work at it night and day.

Take subject matter equal to your powers, and ponder long, what your shoulders cannot bear, and what they can.

Gold loves to make its way through guards, and breaks through barriers of stone more easily than the lightning's bolt.

Man is never watchful enough against dangers that threaten him every hour. [Lat., Quid quisque vitet nunquam homini satis Cautum est in horas.]

It is no easy matter to say commonplace things in an original way.

Scribblers are a self-conceited and self-worshipping race.

He is not poor who has a competency.

If things look badly to-day they may look better tomorrow.

Fiction intended to please, should resemble truth as much as possible.

Learned or unlearned we all must be scribbling.

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.

Patience lightens the burthen we cannot avert.

All men do not admire and delight in the same objects.

The arrow will not always find the mark intended.

I am not what I once was. [Lat., Non sum qualis eram.]

Never without a shilling in my purse.

Be not ashamed to have had wild days, but not to have sown your wild oats.

Be this our wall of brass, to be conscious of having done no evil, and to grow pale at no accusation.

I shall not altogether die.

In hard times, no less than in prosperity, preserve equanimity.

While your client is watching for you at the front door, slip out at the back.

The cask will long retain the flavour of the wine with which it was first seasoned.

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.

You have played enough; you have eaten and drunk enough. Now it is time for you to depart.

The hour of happiness will be the more welcome, the less it was expected.

Enjoy thankfully any happy hour heaven may send you, nor think that your delights will keep till another year.

Your property is in danger when your neighbour's house is on fire.

It is not enough for poems to be fine; they must charm, and draw the mind of the listener at will.

He makes himself ridiculous who is for ever repeating the same mistake.

Though you strut proud of your money, yet fortune has not changed your birth. [Lat., Licet superbus ambules pecuniae, Fortuna non mutat genus.]

The bowl dispels corroding cares.

It is said that the propriety even of old Cato often yielded to the exciting influence of the grape.

It is only Christianity, the great bond of love and duty to God, that makes any existence valuable or even tolerable.

Science is our century's art.

Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.

The best style of writing, as well as the most forcible, is the plainest.

We hope never to live in a Republic where one section is pinned to the other section by bayonets.

Wisdom is never dear, provided the article be genuine.

A widow of doubtful age will marry almost any sort of a white man.

The word "rest" is not in my vocabulary.

I do not regret having braved public opinion, when I knew it was wrong and was sure it would be merciless.

Ease up, the play is over.