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
slave be-a-slave persons
The covetous person is full of fear; and he or she who lives in fear will ever be a slave.
running opposites fool
While fools shun one set of faults they run into the opposite one.
adversity delight too-much
The one who prosperity takes too much delight in will be the most shocked by reverses.
art reading mean
You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.
kings real greatness
Avoid greatness in a cottage there may be more real happiness than kings or their favourites enjoy.
assured mortals
There is nothing assured to mortals.
smart wine simple
Be smart, drink your wine.
ocean heart firsts
Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.
earth fruit ciphers
Nos numeros sumus et fruges consumere nati. We are but ciphers, born to consume earth's fruits.
advice
Whatever your advice, make it brief.
men shoes stories
If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.
character consistency ends
Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.
religious heaven favour
By the favour of the heavens
playing-games drunk enough
You have played enough; you have eaten and drunk enough. Now it is time for you to depart.