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
kings bliss court
Keep clear of courts: a homely life transcends The vaunted bliss of monarchs and their friends.
blessing flow firsts
Mark what and how great blessings flow from a frugal diet; in the first place, thou enjoyest good health.
wise character passion
Who then is free? The wise who can command his passions, who fears not want, nor death, nor chains, firmly resisting his appetites and despising the honors of the world, who relies wholly on himself, whose angular points of character have all been rounded off and polished.
ordinary made wells
You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one seem original.
order poetry tribes
I have to submit to much in order to pacify the touchy tribe of poets.
giving poetry pleasure
That I make poetry and give pleasure - if I give pleasure - are because of you.
mind vices example
We are more speedily and fatally corrupted by domestic examples of vice, and particularly when they are impressed on our minds as from authority.
men poetry rate
Not gods, nor men, nor even booksellers have put up with poets' being second-rate.
nature harmony discord
Nature is harmony in discord.
happiness men way
To marvel at nothing is just about the one and only thing, Numicius, that can make a man happy and keep him that way.
freedom poet claims
Painters and poets alike have always had license to dare anything! We know that, and we both claim and allow to others in their turn this indulgence.
reading writing editing
Often you must turn your stylus to erase, if you hope to write anything worth a second reading.
destiny trying stores
Do not try to find out - we're forbidden to know - what end the gods have in store for me, or for you.
brass lasting monument
I have completed a monument more lasting than brass.