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
sports broken shame
The shame is not in having sported, but in not having broken off the sport. [Lat., Nec luisse pudet, sed non incidere ludum.]
sacrifice order broken
Christ's sacrifice stands in glorious proportions with the work to be done. Nothing else or less would suffice. It is a work supernatural, transacted in the plane of nature; and what but such a work could restore the broken order of the soul under evil?
broken long our-actions
As long as we abide in Christ, our action is from Him, not from our own corrupt and broken nature.
ignorance broken silence
Ignorance has been well represented under the similitude of a dungeon, where, though it is full of life, yet darkness and silence reign. But in society the bars and locks have been broken; the dungeon itself is demolished; the prisoners are out; they are in the midst of us. We have no security but to teach and renovate them.
guilty pale secrets turn wall
Be this your wall of brass, to have no guilty secrets, no wrong-doing that makes you turn pale
labor mountains mouse ridiculous
The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be born.
crazy fools-and-foolishness
As crazy as hauling timber into the woods.
avoid cottage favourites greatness happiness kings
Avoid greatness; in a cottage there may be more real happiness than kings or their favourites enjoy.
bowl soul troubles within
Bacchus drowns within the bowl - Troubles that corrode the soul
fond illusion mock
Do you hear, or does some fond illusion mock me?
fools-and-foolishness good mix silly
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: it's good to be silly at the right moment. (Odes, bk. 4, no. 12, l. 27)
fools-and-foolishness lovely mix moment serious silly
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly at the right moment
absurd birth mountains
Mountains will be in labour, and the birth will be an absurd little mouse.
falls force judgment
Force without judgment falls of its own weight.