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
truth moderation fortune
Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach, So shalt thou live beyond the reach Of adverse Fortune's pow'r; Not always tempt the distant deep, Nor always timorously creep Along the treach'rous shore.
vain cradle graves
Nor has he lived in vain, who from his cradle to his grave has passed his life in seclusion.
men faults born
No man is born without faults.
cutting failing knots
Ridicule often cuts the knot, where severity fails.
useless deeds wealth
High descent and meritorious deeds, unless united to wealth, are as useless as seaweed.
conceited race self
Scribblers are a self-conceited and self-worshipping race.
life littles slave
He is always a slave who cannot live on little.
poet madmen fellows
The fellow is either a madman or a poet.
difficulty explanation
The explanation avails nothing, which in leading us from one difficulty involves us in another.
wine praise drunkards
The drunkard is convicted by his praises of wine.
want
The covetous are always in want.
hook pits hawks
The cautious wolf fears the pit, the hawk regards with suspicion the snare laid for her, and the fish the hook in its concealment.
wine long firsts
The cask will long retain the flavour of the wine with which it was first seasoned.
care bowls
The bowl dispels corroding cares.