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
treasure may contemplating
The mob may hiss me, but I congratulate myself while I contemplate my treasures in their hoard.
death art kings
Pale death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and king's palaces.
laughter stolen provoking
The jackdaw, stript of her stolen colours, provokes our laughter.
hours
The hour of happiness which comes unexpectedly is the happiest.
fall towers higher
The higher the tower, the greater the fall thereof.
sin virtue refrain
The good refrain from sin from the pure love of virtue.
country race towns
The whole race of scribblers flies from the town and yearns for country life.
faults pardon
There are faults we would fain pardon.
way common speak
It is difficult to speak of what is common in a way of your own.
hate taken long
We hate merit while it is with us; when taken away from our gaze, we long for it jealously.
spoken-word written-word recalls
It will be practicable to blot written words which you do not publish; but the spoken word it is not possible to recall. [Lat., Delere licebit Quod non edideris; nescit vox missa reverti.]
faults
Faults are soon copied.
limits fixed
There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.
blow return
We get blows and return them.