Anger is a brief madness.
One man with courage makes a majority.
Naked I seek the camp of those who desire nothing.
Glory drags all men along, low as well as high, bound captive at the wheels of her glittering car.
Whatever advice you give, be brief.
[He] who has self-confidence will lead the rest.
Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
- A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame,
- These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame:
- Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips
- Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips.
Now is the time for drinking, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth.
Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers.
- The horse would plough, the ox would drive the car.
- No; do the work you know, and tarry where you are.
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
HORACE, attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
Struggling to be brief I become obscure.
Small things become small folks.
- O drink is mighty! secrets it unlocks,
- Turns hope to fact, sets cowards on to box,
- Takes burdens from the careworn, finds out parts
- In stupid folks, and teaches unknown arts.
- What tongue hangs fire when quickened by the bowl?
- What wretch so poor but wine expands his soul?
It is difficult to speak of the universal specifically.
The covetous man is ever in want.
He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
HORACE, attributed, Words of Wellness: A Treasury of Quotations for Well-Being
In peace, a wise man makes preparations for war.
- Joy, grief, desire or fear, whate'er the name
- The passion bears, its influence is the same;
- Where things exceed your hope or fall below,
- You stare, look blank, grow numb from top to toe.
- None knows the reason why this curse
- Was sent on him, this love of making verse.
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.
- Take too much pleasure in good things, you'll feel
- The shock of adverse fortune makes you reel.
Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.
- If virtue holds the secret, don't defer;
- Be off with pleasure, and be on with her.
- He that finds out he's changed his lot for worse,
- Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse:
- For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast,
- That each man's shoe be made on his own last.
Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full.
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
HORACE, attributed, The Quotable Intellectual
The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.
You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she still will hurry back.
- Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be,
- And think each day that dawns the last you'll see;
- For so the hour that greets you unforeseen
- Will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.
The sorrowful dislike the gay, and the gay the sorrowful.
HORACE, Epistles
The man who thinks with Horace thinks divine.
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