Horace Quotes

There is a medium in all things. There are certain limits beyond, or within which, that which is right cannot exist.

Kings play the fool, and the people suffer for it.

There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.

Once sent out, a word takes wings beyond recall.

Anger is momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

Money amassed either serves us or rules us.

Teaching brings out innate powers, and proper training braces the intellect.

The tendency of humanity is towards the forbidden.

In avoiding one vice fools rush into the opposite extreme.

Much is wanting to those who seek or covet much.

Words challenge eternity.

What may not be altered is made lighter by patience.

Fire, if neglected, will soon gain strength.

The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.

There is moderation in everything.

Virtue consists in avoiding vice, and is the highest wisdom. [Lat., Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima.]

Of what use are laws, inoperative through public immortality? [Lat., Quid leges sine moribus Vanae proficiunt?]

When your throat is parched with thirst, do you desire a cup of gold?

The illustration which solves one difficulty by raising another, settles nothing. [Lat., Nil agit exemplum, litem quod lite resolvit.]

Better one thorn pluck'd out than all remain.

Care clings to wealth: the thirst for more Grows as our fortunes grow.

Let him who has enough ask for nothing more.

Each day that fate adds to your life, put down as so much gain.

We hate merit while it is with us; when taken away from our gaze, we long for it jealously.

He that finds out he's changed his lot for worse, Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse: For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast, That each man's shoe be made on his own last.

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living.

Our parents, worse than our grandparents, gave birth to us who are worse than they, and we shall in our turn bear offspring still more evil.

God made not pleasures for the rich alone.

The populace may hiss me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself.

Be brief, that the mind may catch thy precepts, and the more easily retain them.

Be not for ever harassed by impotent desire.

He despises what he sought; and he seeks that which he lately threw away. [Lat., Quod petit spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit.]

If nothing is delightful without love and jokes, then live in love and jokes.

You may suppress natural propensities by force, but they will be certain to re-appear.

As shines the moon amid the lesser fires.

O sweet solace of labors. [Lat., O laborum Dulce lenimen.]

Riches are first to be sought for; after wealth, virtue.

I wrap myself up in virtue. [Lat., Mea virtute me involvo.]

Happy and thrice happy are those who enjoy an uninterrupted union, and whose love, unbroken by any sour complaints, shall not dissolve until the last day of their existence.

The good refrain from sin from the pure love of virtue.

Ah Fortune, what god is more cruel to us than thou! How thou delightest ever to make sport of human life!

Who after wine, talks of wars hardships or of poverty.

In my integrity I'll wrap me up.

The mountains are in labour, the birth will be an absurd little mouse.

It is not every man that can afford to go to Corinth.

Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.

Not treasured wealth, nor the consul's lictor, can dispel the mind's bitter conflicts and the cares that flit, like bats, about your fretted roofs.

Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy.

Let not a god interfere unless where a god's assistance is necessary. [Adopt extreme measures only in extreme cases.]

Let Apella the Jew believe it.