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
steps
There is no retracing our steps.
limits certain mediums
There is a medium in all things. There are certain limits beyond, or within which, that which is right cannot exist.
mean wealth given
The gods have given you wealth and the means of enjoying it.
brass raised monument
I have raised for myself a monument more durable than brass.
advice mind superfluous
Superfluous advice is not retained by the full mind.
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.