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
heed
Take heed lest you stumble.
fall weight judgment
Strength without judgment falls by its own weight.
gold silver virtue
Silver is of less value than gold, gold than virtue.
men tales inquisitive
Shun an inquisitive man, he is invariably a tell-tale.
morrow
Seek not to inquire what the morrow will bring with it.
men duty
No man ever properly calculates from time to time what it is his duty to avoid.
purses
Never without a shilling in my purse.
age inclination
My age, my inclinations, are no longer what they were.
trying obscure concise
In trying to be concise I become obscure.
boys play mirth
In truth it is best to learn wisdom, and abandoning all nonsense, to leave it to boys to enjoy their season of play and mirth.
pears presses
In the same [hospitable] manner that a Calabrian would press you to eat his pears.
fire fields ferns
In neglected fields the fern grows, which must be cleared out by fire.
men tyrants purpose
The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.
integrity wraps
In my integrity I'll wrap me up.