Horace Quotes

The horse would plough, the ox would drive the car. No; do the work you know, and tarry where you are.

A foreign nation is a kind of contemporaneous posterity.

It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.

Men are often capable of greater things than they perform - They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.

He paints a dolphin in the woods, a boar in the waves.

It is good to labor; it is also good to rest from labor.

The musician who always plays on the same string is laughed at.

He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.

We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.

Who knows if the gods above will add tomorrow's span to this day's sum?

Riches either serve or govern the possessor.

Scientific truth is marvelous, but moral truth is divine and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise.

It is sweet and honorable to die for your country.

Don't waste the opportunity.

He is not poor who has the use of necessary things. [Lat., Pauper enim non est cui rerum suppetet usus.]

Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability.

A poem is like a painting.

Increasing wealth is attended by care and by the desire of greater increase.

Wine brings to light the hidden secrets of the soul, gives being to our hopes, bids the coward flight, drives dull care away, and teaches new means for the accomplishment of our wishes.

Teaching isn't one-tenth as effective as training.

These trifles will lead to serious mischief. [Lat., Hae nugae seria ducent In mala.]

Excellence when concealed, differs but little from buried worthlessness. [Lat., Paullum sepultae distat inertiae Celata virtus.]

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.

Those who covet much suffer from the want.

Those who exert the first influence upon the mind have the greatest power.

Capture the day, put minimum trust on tomorrow.

One goes to the right, the other to the left; both are wrong, but in different directions.

It is your business when the wall next door catches fire.

If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.

One night awaits all, and death's path must be trodden once and for all.

Who then is sane? He who is not a fool.

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

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom.

We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.

Whatever things injure your eye you are anxious to remove; but things which affect your mind you defer.

Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men, Nor men the weak anxieties of age.

The man who has lost his purse will go wherever you wish. [Lat., Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit.]

I shall strike the stars with my uplifted head.

Death is the last limit of all things.

Most virtue lies between two vices.

The words can not return.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she'll be constantly running back.

Something is always wanting to incomplete fortune. [Lat., Curtae nescio quid semper abest rei.]

Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.

Sometimes even excellent Homer nods.

He who studies to imitate the poet Pindar, O Julius, relies on artificial wings fastened on with wax, and is sure to give his name to a glassy sea.

Everything, virtue, glory, honor, things human and divine, all are slaves to riches.

I praise her (Fortune) while she lasts; if she shakes her quick wings, I resign what she has given, and take refuge in my own virtue, and seek honest undowered Poverty.