Horace (65–8 BCE,) fully Quintus Horatius Flaccus, was a Roman poet of the Augustan age. A notable satirist and literary critic, he is best known for his Satires (c.35 BCE,) Epodes (c.30 BCE,) Odes (c.23 BCE,) Epistles (c.20 BCE,) and Ars Poetica (c.19 BCE; The Art of Poetry)—these literary classics have been the cornerstones of Western poetry.
Much is known about Horace’s life from a biography by Suetonius and Horace’s own testimony. Born in Venusia (modern-day Venosa in southwest Italy) to a former slave, Horace was sent to Rome and then Athens for an education matching that of a usual upper-class Roman of the time. In Athens, Horace joined Brutus’s army as a junior officer. However, with the fall of Brutus, Horace’s family lost much of its property. Horace returned to Italy under a general amnesty, wrote his first poems, and made friends with Virgil, Varius Rufus, and Gaius Maecenas.
Horace’s standing as the most significant Roman lyric poet rests on the excellence of form revealed by the Odes, and on the depth and detail of his self-portraiture in his literary works. He was considered the principal authority on the composition of poetry; his Ars Poetica set the standards for poetry to govern literary criticism even in the present day.
Horace’s proficient mastery of a wide variety of lyric forms is matched both by the wealth of his subject matter—ranging from politics to love, poetry to ethics, and daily life to biography—and by the multiplicity of his tones, which shift from satire to didacticism and from affection to diatribe.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Justice
Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing
A word once uttered can never be recalled.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Words
How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Economy, Economics
What it is forbidden to be put right becomes lighter by acceptance.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Acceptance
Fools, through false shame, conceal their open wounds.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Courage
Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Freedom
One gains universal applause who mingles the useful with the agreeable, at once delighting and instructing the reader.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Applause
When evil times prevail, take care to preserve the serenity of your heart.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Attitude
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Secrets of Success, Action
Why harass with eternal purposes a mind to weak to grasp them?
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Persuasion
Knowledge without education is but armed injustice.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Knowledge
Sad people dislike the happy, and the happy the sad; the quick thinking the sedate, and the careless the busy and industrious.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: People, Thinking
You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Laziness
If you study the history and records of the world, you must admit that the source of justice was the fear of injustice.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Justice
No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Poetry, Writing
The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Envy
The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Bravery, Courage
The more a man denies himself, the more he shall obtain from God.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Life gives nothing to man without labor.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Labor
No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Poetry, Pleasure
Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Consistency
Who then is free? The one who wisely is lord of themselves, who neither poverty, death or captivity terrify, who is strong to resist his appetites and shun honors, and is complete in themselves smooth and round like a globe.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Freedom
Better to accept whatever happens.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Acceptance
Whatever advice you give, be brief.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Advice
Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Biography, Legacy
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Opinions, Difficulties, Adversity, Challenges
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Moderation
I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Dying, Death
This used to be my prayer – a piece of land not so very large, which would contain a garden, and near the house a spring of ever-flowing water, and beyond these a bit of wood.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Man learns more readily and remembers more willingly what excites his ridicule than what deserves esteem and respect.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
No man ever reached to excellence in any one art or profession without having passed through the slow and painful process of study and preparation.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Excellence
Pale death with an impartial foot knocks at the hovels of the poor and the palaces of king.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Death
As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Adversity
Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will conceal and cover up what is now shining with the greatest splendor.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Time
The common people are but ill judges of a man’s merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Popularity
Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Blessings, Gratitude
He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Life and Living
You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Nature
The man is either mad, or he is making verses.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Poetry
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