Horace Quotes

He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.

Magnas inter opes inops.

Nil sine magno
vita labore dedit mortalibus.

Nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati.

You may thresh a hundred thousand bushels of grain, / But more than mine your belly will not contain.

Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, but any means money.

Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea paucis
mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si
egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos,
si neque avaritiam neque sordes nec mala lustra
obiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons,
ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis...
at hoc nunc
laus illi debetur et a me gratia maior.
nil me paeniteat sanum patris huius, eoque
non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars,
quod non ingenuos habeat clarosque parentis,
sic me defendam.

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.

If you can realistically render
a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint
a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck?

You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she still will hurry back.

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus
Interpres.

So, if you don't summon a book and a light before dawn,
If you don't set your mind on honest aims and pursuits,
On waking, you'll be tortured by envy or lust.
Why so quick to remove a speck from your eye, when
If it's your mind, you put off the cure till next year?
Who's started has half finished: dare to be wise: begin!

Either stick to tradition or see that your inventions be consistent.

Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum:
Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora.

For joys fall not to the rich alone, nor has he lived ill, who from birth to death has passed unknown.