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
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.
spring garden land
I prayed only for a small piece of land, a garden, an ever-flowing spring, and bit of woods.
country pursuit dear
Let us both small and great push forward in this work, in this pursuit, if to our country, if to ourselves we would live dear.
honor riches virtue
Everything, virtue, glory, honor, things human and divine, all are slaves to riches.
stars poet strikes
If you rank me with the lyric poets, my exalted head shall strike the stars. [Lat., Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseris, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.]
fate littles folks
Little folks become their little fate.
men ordinary poet
Neither men, nor gods, nor booksellers' shelves permit ordinary poets to exist. [Lat., Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae.]
men boys anxiety
Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men, Nor men the weak anxieties of age.