Horace Quotes

Surely a Man may speak Truth with a smiling countenance.

He who combines the useful and the pleasing wins out by both instructing and delighting the reader. That is the sort of book that will make money for the publisher, cross the seas, and extend the fame of the author.

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

He gets every vote who combines the useful with the pleasant, and who, at the same time he pleases the reader, also instructs him.

This is a fault common to singers that among their friends they were never inclined to sing when they were asked, unasked they never desist.

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

Dulce est desipere in loco

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare:
Tyrrhenum sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Why do you laugh? Change the name and the story is about you

If you wish me to weep, you yourself
Must first feel grief.

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

We are just statistics, born to consume resources.

Natales grate numeras?

(Do you count your birthdays with gratitude?)

Saepa stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint scripturas. (Turn the stylus [to erase] often if you would write something worthy of being reread.)

Tu ne quaesieris — scire nefas — quem mihi, quem tibi finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati. . . . Spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur fugerit invida aetas. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.