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
ridicule employed severity
Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity.
excited hours
His anger is easily excited and appeased, and he changes from hour to hour.
humanity tendencies forbidden
The tendency of humanity is towards the forbidden.
talking no-trust fleeing
While we're talking, envious time is fleeing: pluck the day, put no trust in the future
enjoy present-day
Enjoy the present day, trust the least possible to the future.
delight teach
To teach is to delight.
character excellence littles
Excellence when concealed, differs but little from buried worthlessness. [Lat., Paullum sepultae distat inertiae Celata virtus.]
madness momentary
Anger is momentary madness.
character lasts consistent
Let the character as it began be preserved to the last; and let it be consistent with itself.
business physicians tools
Physicians attend to the business of physicians, and workmen handle the tools of workmen. [Lat., Quod medicorum est Promittunt medici, tractant fabrilia fabri.]
fire hazards ashes
The work you are treating is one full of dangerous hazard, and you are treading over fires lurking beneath treacherous ashes.
cutting iron vices
I will perform the function of a whetstone, which is about to restore sharpness to iron, though itself unable to cut. [Lat., Fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsi secandi.]
desire care riches
Increasing wealth is attended by care and by the desire of greater increase.
world corners-of-the-world corners
That corner of the world smiles for me more than anywhere else.