Horace Quotes

Habit can overcome anything but instinct, and can greatly modify even that.

There is nothing derogatory in any employment which ministers to the well-being of the race. It is the spirit that is carried into an employment that elevates or degrades it.

Willmott has very tersely said that embellished truths are the illuminated alphabet of larger children.

No combatants are so unequally matched as when one is shackled with error, while the other rejoices in the self-demonstrability of truth.

God draweth straight lines but we call them crooked.

We put things in order - God does the rest. Lay an iron bar east and west, it is not magnetized. Lay it north and south and it is.

Be careful never to retire to rest in a room not properly ventilated.

Time is a seedfield; in youth we sow it with causes; in after life we reap the harvest of effects.

Man is improvable. Some people think he is only a machine, and that the only difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by water.

Love not only occupies the higher lobes of the brain, but crowds out the lower to make room for its expansion.

On the face of it, it must be a bad cause which will not bear discussion. Truth seeks light instead of shunning it.

We are prone to seek immediate pleasure or good, however small, rather than remote pleasure or good, however vast.

I think there are still plenty of free-thinking creative people out there. There always will be.

In my moments of down time I tend to listen to Blues.

Young people are still experiencing the thrill of three chords and over-amplified guitars. They always will.

My encyclopedic knowledge of rock and roll is a millstone around my neck.

The internet has huge advantages but its downside is the easy access to resources.

It would be difficult to do art without music (music subsidises the art).

I'm always on the look out for 'the good image'. I'm like The Borg (you know, Star Trek) inasmuch as I assimilate everything - but I like to think I'm working in the Pop Art tradition.

I still get a buzz from seeing young kids making music.

A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.

Be moderate in everything, including moderation.

The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.

Our supreme governors, the mob.

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.

I have known men of valor cowards to their wives.

I can forgive injuries, but never benefits.

The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.

Exercise is the worst thing in the world and as bad an invention as gunpowder.

Fashion is always silly, for, before it can spread far, it must be calculated for silly people; as examples of sense, wit, or ingenuity could be imitated only by a few.

I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.

I firmly believe, notwithstanding all our complaints, that almost every person upon earth tastes upon the totality more happiness than misery.

Let the French but have England, and they won't want to conquer it.

Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.

Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!

How much on outward show does all depend, If virtues from within no lustre lend! Strip off th'externals M and Y, the rest Proves Majesty itself is but a Jest.

An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.

[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.

We must cultivate our garden. Furia to God one day in seven allots; The other six to scandal she devotes. Satan, by false devotion never flammed, Bets six to one, that Furia will be damned.

One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.

Art is the filigrain of a little mind, and is twisted and involved and curled, but would reach farther if laid out in a straight line.

[King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom of Naples, because he would not bedisturbed when painting a picture of a partridge.

Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.

The whole [Scotch] nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.

Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories

Letters to absence can a voice impart, And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart.

Fashion is fortunately no law but to its devotees.