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
memories lessons may
The poets aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.
death night path
One night awaits all, and death's path must be trodden once and for all.
punishment guilt companion
Punishment closely follows guilt as its companion.
loyalty storm shelter
I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.
men may knaves
Even virtue followed beyond reason's rule May stamp the just man knave, the sage a fool.
running teaching mind
Whatever you teach, be brief; what is quickly said, the mind readily receives and faithfully retains, everything superfluous runs over as from a full vessel.
enough sufficiency asks
Let him who has enough ask for nothing more.
years hair tears
Our years Glide silently away. No tears, No loving orisons repair The wrinkled cheek, the whitening hair That drop forgotten to the tomb.
poetry anvils ill
And take back ill-polished stanzas to the anvil.
mind enough fine
It is not enough for poems to be fine; they must charm, and draw the mind of the listener at will.
distance fancy pieces
Poetry is like painting: one piece takes your fancy if you stand close to it, another if you keep at some distance.
men preference
There are as many preferences as there are men.
retirement horse laughing
Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest he fail in the lists and the spectators laugh.
speech wells subjects
When you have well thought out your subject, words will come spontaneously.