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
change horse lazy
The lazy ox wishes for horse-trappings, and the steed wishes to plough. [Lat., Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus.]
change despise
He despises what he sought; and he seeks that which he lately threw away. [Lat., Quod petit spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit.]
change
I am not what I once was. [Lat., Non sum qualis eram.]
change vices rich
Change generally pleases the rich. [Lat., Plerumque gratae divitibus vices.]
change nice years
Not to hope for things to last forever, is what the year teaches and even the hour which snatches a nice day away.
across change rush travel-and-tourism
They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.
change cross sea
Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.
guilty pale secrets turn wall
Be this your wall of brass, to have no guilty secrets, no wrong-doing that makes you turn pale
struggle
I struggle to be brief, and I become obscure.
died pride vain
Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and they died
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.
fathers though
Though guiltless, you must expiate your fathers' sins.