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)
If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Emotions, Grief
Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Literature
Make a good use of the present.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Time, Time Management
Does he council you better who bids you, Money, by right means, if you can: but by any means, make money ?
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Money
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Adversity, Courage
Those who seek for much are left in want of much. Happy is he to whom God has given, with sparing hand, as much as is enough.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Satisfaction
Shun the inquisitive, for you will be sure to find him leaky. Open ears do not keep conscientiously what has been intrusted to them, and a word once spoken flies, never to be recalled.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Gossip
Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Politics
Money is a handmaiden, if thou knowest how to use it; a mistress, if thou knowest not.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Money
The more a man denies himself, the more he shall obtain from God.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Suffering
Tear thyself from delay.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Procrastination
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans: it’s lovely to be silly at the right moment.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Fools, Foolishness
Mistakes are their own instructors
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Mistakes
Clogged with yesterday’s excess, the body drags the mind down with it.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: The Past, Diet, Past, Weight
Necessity takes impartially the highest and the lowest.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Necessity
Anger is a brief madness.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Anger
Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Love, Passion
It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Health
The poets aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Loyalty
No one is content with his own lot.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Reality, Opportunities
And may I live the remainder of my life for myself; may there be plenty of books and many years’ store of the fruits of the earth.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Happiness
You will live wisely if you are happy in your lot.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Happiness, Blessings
They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Tourism, Travel
He who is greedy is always in want.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Blessings, Greed, Gratitude, Appreciation
Help a man against his will and you do the same as murder him.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Assistance, Help, Aid
The power of daring anything their fancy suggest, as always been conceded to the painter and the poet.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Topics: Risk
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) Roman Poet
Virgil Roman Poet
Lucretius Roman Epicurean Philosopher
Catullus Roman Latin Poet
Persius Roman Poet
Juvenal Roman Poet
Marcus Manilius Roman Poet
Martial Ancient Roman Latin Poet
Claudian Roman Poet
Cicero Roman Philosopher