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
men wish purses
The man who has lost his purse will go wherever you wish. [Lat., Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit.]
poverty use poor
He is not poor who has the use of necessary things. [Lat., Pauper enim non est cui rerum suppetet usus.]
parent age doe
What does not wasting time change! The age of our parents, worse than that of our grandsires, has brought us forth more impious still, and we shall produce a more vicious progeny.
way common individual
It is hard to utter common notions in an individual way.
eye men people
The common people are but ill judges of a man's merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them.
passion men tyrants
The just man having a firm grasp of his intentions, neither the heated passions of his fellow men ordaining something awful, nor a tyrant staring him in the face, will shake in his convictions.
passion want poet
The poet must put on the passion he wants to represent.
lying talent dormant
Difficulties elicit talents that in more fortunate circumstances would lie dormant.
Much is wanting to those who seek or covet much.
men mad poet
The man is either mad or his is making verses. [Lat., Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit.]
use firsts poet
Poets, the first instructors of mankind, Brought all things to the proper native use.
pain pleasure despise
Despise pleasure; pleasure bought by pain in injurious.
sea hug storm
Better wilt thou live...by neither always pressing out to sea nor too closely hugging the dangerous shore in cautious fear of storms.
ridicule employed severity
Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity.