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
writing care authorship
Often turn the stile [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read twice. [Lat., Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.]
writing authorship ability
Ye who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities. [Lat., Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, aequam Viribus.]
practice firsts citizens
O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
common eating empty
A stomach that is seldom empty despises common food. [Lat., Jejunus raro stomachus vulgaria temnit.]
envy
Envy is not to be conquered but by death.
home thinking may
The populace may hiss me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself.
busy inertia urges
Busy idleness urges us on. [Lat., Strenua nos exercet inertia.]
luck birth
Luck cannot change birth.
men mediocrity poet
Mediocrity is not allowed to poets, either by the gods or men.
years authorship written
Let it (what you have written) be kept back until the ninth year. [Lat., Nonumque prematur in annum.]
mean envy safe
Who loves the golden mean is safe from the poverty of a tenement, is free from the envy of a palace. [Lat., Auream quisquis mediocritatem deligit tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda sobrius aula.]
years wind pyramids
I have reared a memorial more enduring than brass, and loftier than the regal structure of the pyramids, which neither the corroding shower nor the powerless north wind can destroy; no, not even unending years nor the flight of time itself. I shall not entirely die. The greater part of me shall escape oblivion. [Lat., Exegi monumentum aera perennius Regalique situ pyramidum altius, Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens Possit diruere aut innumerabilis Annorum series et fuga temporum. Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei Vitabit Libitinam.]
sky reign praise
I live and reign since I have abandoned those pleasures which you by your praises extol to the skies. [Lat., Vivo et regno, simul ista reliqui Quae vos ad coelum effertis rumore secundo.]
break-through gold stones
Gold loves to make its way through guards, and breaks through barriers of stone more easily than the lightning's bolt.