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
summer spring heels
Summer treads on heels of spring.
heed
Take heed lest you stumble.
morrow
Seek not to inquire what the morrow will bring with it.
wrinkles age encroachment
Not even piety will stay wrinkles, nor the encroachments of age, nor the advance of death, which cannot be resisted.
kings play people
Kings play the fool, and the people suffer for it.
mean men doors
He, that holds fast the golden mean, And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, Imbitt'ring all his state.
vases pot
It was intended to be a vase, it has turned out a pot.
influence grapes cato
It is said that the propriety even of old Cato often yielded to the exciting influence of the grape.
running may needs
There is need of brevity, that the thought may run on.
truth moderation fortune
Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach, So shalt thou live beyond the reach Of adverse Fortune's pow'r; Not always tempt the distant deep, Nor always timorously creep Along the treach'rous shore.
purses
Never without a shilling in my purse.
mountain lightning strikes
Lightning strikes the tops of the mountains.
mind care morrow
Let your mind, happily contented with the present, care not what the morrow will bring with it.
cheer father taken
He possesses dominion over himself, and is happy, who can every day say, "I have lived." Tomorrow the heavenly father may either involve the world in dark clouds, or cheer it with clear sunshine, he will not, however, render ineffectual the things which have already taken place.