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
should knows
It is not permitted that we should know everything.
knows
Thou oughtest to know, since thou livest near the gods. [Lat., Scire, deos quoniam propius contingis, oportet.]
knowledge all-things knows
To know all things is not permitted.
knowledge knows
One cannot know everything.
office machines knows
To know the machine one must know where each part belongs, and what its office is.
truth needs knows
You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it; but let all you tell be truth.
men asks knows
Never ask a man what he knows, but what he can do.
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.