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
laughing age gone
It is time for thee to be gone, lest the age more decent in its wantonness should laugh at thee and drive thee of the stage. [Lat., Tempus abire tibi est, ne . . . Rideat et pulset lasciva decentius aetas.]
distance profane
I abhor the profane rabble and keep them at a distance.
eye procrastination mind
Whatever things injure your eye you are anxious to remove; but things which affect your mind you defer.
Money amassed either serves us or rules us.
fate gains granted
Shun to seek what is hid in the womb of the morrow, and set down as gain in life's ledger whatever time fate shall have granted thee.
may events looking-forward
Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.
may too-much fly-away
Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.
mind may
Be brief, that the mind may catch thy precepts, and the more easily retain them.
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.