Horace Quotes

You may choose to live in a world of fantasy if you like, my dear, but I am a realist.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight

The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds;
High towers fall with a heavier crash;
And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

(Mountains are in labour, a ridiculous mouse will be born)

my observations are for my own improvement (137–8); and my writings are just an amusing pastime (138–9).

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

Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror

Lectio, quae placuit, decies repetita placebit.

(What we read with pleasure we can read many times with pleasure.)

If you wish people to weep, you must weep first.

Mingle a dash of folly with your wisdom.

It is not the rich man you should properly call happy,
but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods,
to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death,
and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.

An Widerständen zeigt sich das Genie des Generals, Glück verhüllt es.

Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
regumque turres.

-

Pale Death kicks in the huts of paupers
just as it does the towers of kings,

(Odes I, 4)

Nil mortalibus ardui est

omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum
grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora.