Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionPoet
guilty pale secrets turn wall
Be this your wall of brass, to have no guilty secrets, no wrong-doing that makes you turn pale
struggle
I struggle to be brief, and I become obscure.
died pride vain
Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and they died
fools-and-foolishness good mix silly
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: it's good to be silly at the right moment. (Odes, bk. 4, no. 12, l. 27)
fools-and-foolishness lovely mix moment serious silly
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly at the right moment
absurd birth mountains
Mountains will be in labour, and the birth will be an absurd little mouse.
fathers though
Though guiltless, you must expiate your fathers' sins.
approval greek-poet pleasant
He gains everyone's approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.
disgrace greek-poet keeps
The disgrace of others often keeps tender minds from vice.
greek-poet
He has the deed half done who has made a beginning.
discover greek-poet passed returns road strange travel
Strange - is it not? That of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the road Which to discover we must travel too.
greek-poet man
The man is either mad, or he is making verses.
greek-poet struggle
It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.
fear great greek-poet man pleasant seems tried
To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.