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
opposites trying faults
When we try to avoid one fault, we are led to the opposite, unless we be very careful.
music faults singers
All singers have this fault: if asked to sing among friends they are never so inclined; if unasked, they never leave off.
men faults born
No man is born without faults.
faults pardon
There are faults we would fain pardon.
faults
Faults are soon copied.
wall faults sides
Faults are committed within the walls of Troy and also without. [There is fault on both sides.]
acceptance men faults
We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.
poetry imperfection faults
Where there are many beauties in a poem I shall not cavil at a few faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature.
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.