Horace Quotes

As an apple is not in any proper sense an apple until it is ripe, so a human being is not in any proper sense a human being until he is educated.

When will society, like a mother, take care of all her children?

Let's go sit and hate a bunch of people.

To me, NOTHING is 'new'.

[The task is to] covertly lower the standard of living, the whole social structure, of America so that we can be merged with all other nations.

It is charming to totter into vogue.

Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil.

[The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste--or is but half taste.

Things have done their part; it is for us to do ours.

In love there are two evils: war and peace.

There are words and accents by which this grief can be assuaged, and the disease in a great measure removed.

Better to accept whatever happens.

False conclusions which have been reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulse.

One cannot know everything.

Live mindful of how brief your life is.

No one is content with his own lot.

Let your poem be kept nine years.

Avoid witticisms at the expense of Others.

Oh, the ignorance of us upon whom Providence did not sufficiently smile to permit us to be born in New England.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

A lesson learned at the muzzle has the virtue of never being forgotten.

Those who succeed can't forgive a fellow for being a failure, and those who fail can't forgive him for being a success.

Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there's only one letter between its ends when they occupy their proper places in the alphabet.

A man's got to keep company a long time, and come early and stay late and sit close, before he can get a girl or a job worth having.

The solution to our energy needs must go through a show of respect for nature, not, once again, a policy that does violence to our hills.

And a diplomatist is one who lets the other fellow think he's getting his way, while all the time he's having his own. It never does any special harm to let people have their way with their mouths.

When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds.

Back of every noble life there are principles that have fashioned it.

When love is full grown it has few words, and sometimes it growls them out.

Some men are like oak leaves -- they don't know when they're dead, but still hang right on; and there are others who let go before anything has really touched them.

Books are all right, but dead men's brains are no good unless you mix a live one's with them.

When an office begins to look like a family tree, you'll find worms tucked away snug and cheerful in most of the apples.

Having money and buying things with money is a good thing. But also do not forget to check occasionally to lose if you do not buy anything with money or not

A fellow and his business should be bosom friends in the office and sworn enemies out of it.

There’s no easier way to cure foolishness than to give a man leave to be foolish. And the only way to show a fellow that he’s chosen the wrong business is to let him try it.

The more I deal in it, the surer I am that human nature is all of the same critter, but that there's a heap of choice in the cuts.

Clothes don't make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that's a pretty considerable area of the human animal.

Culture is not a matter of a change of climate.

True love is not only blind, but too gallant to ask a lady's age.

Pleasure bought with pain does harm.

Whom does undeserved honour please, and undeserved blame alarm, but the base and the liar?

Those who go overseas find a change of climate, not a change of soul.

Those who want much, are always much in need; happy the man to whom God gives with a sparing hand what is sufficient for his wants.

Who is a good man? He who keeps the decrees of the fathers, and both human and divine laws. [Lat., Vir bonus est quis? Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat.]

Alas, Postumus, the fleeting years slip by, nor will piety give any stay to wrinkles and pressing old age and untamable death.

Poets, the first instructors of mankind, Brought all things to the proper native use.

Physicians attend to the business of physicians, and workmen handle the tools of workmen. [Lat., Quod medicorum est Promittunt medici, tractant fabrilia fabri.]

Pry not into the affairs of others, and keep secret that which has been entrusted to you, though sorely tempted by wine and passion.

We are more speedily and fatally corrupted by domestic examples of vice, and particularly when they are impressed on our minds as from authority.

To teach is to delight.