Top 500 Horace Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Happy and thrice happy are those who enjoy an uninterrupted union, and whose love, unbroken by any sour complaints, shall not dissolve until the last day of their existence.”

— Horace

252. “Pale death approaches with equal step, and knocks indiscriminately at the door of teh cottage, and the portals of the palace.”

— Horace

253. “Don’t long for the unripe grape.”

— Horace

254. “The foolish are like ripples on water, For whatsoever they do is quickly effaced; But the righteous are like carvings upon stone, For their smallest act is durable.”

— Horace

255. “Let those who drink not, but austerely dine, dry up in law; the Muses smell of wine.”

— Horace

256. “A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them.”

— Horace

257. “You traverse the world in search of happiness which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.”

— Horace

258. “What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.”

— Horace

259. “If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.”

— Horace

260. “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

261. “Gladly accept the gifts of the present hour.”

— Horace

262. “For example, the tiny ant, a creature of great industry, drags with its mouth whatever it can, and adds it to the heap which she is piling up, not unaware nor careless of the future.”

— Horace

263. “Death is the last limit of all things.”

— Horace

264. “Never despair while under the guidance and auspices of Teucer.”

— Horace

265. “Not to hope for things to last forever, is what the year teaches and even the hour which snatches a nice day away.”

— Horace

266. “The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.”

— Horace

267. “When evil times prevail, take care to preserve the serenity of your hear.”

— Horace

268. “Gold will be slave or master.”

— Horace

269. “As a true translator you will take care not to translate word for word.”

— Horace

270. “A hungry stomach rarely despises common food.”

— Horace

271. “The short span of life forbids us to spin out hope to any length. Soon will night be upon you, and the fabled Shades, and the shadowy Plutonian home.”

— Horace

272. “Let this be your wall of brass, to have nothing on your conscience, no guilt to make you turn pale.”

— Horace

273. “The things, that are repeated again and again, are pleasant.”

— Horace

274. “The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.”

— Horace

275. “In my youth I thought of writing a satire on mankind! but now in my age I think I should write an apology for them.”

— Horace

276. “There is nothing hard inside the olive; nothing hard outside the nut.”

— Horace

277. “Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.”

— Horace

278. “Remember you must die whether you sit about moping all day long or whether on feast days you stretch out in a green field, happy with a bottle of Falernian from your innermost cellar.”

— Horace

279. “The Sun, the stars and the seasons as they pass, some can gaze upon these with no strain of fear.”

— Horace

280. “I abhor the profane rabble and keep them at a distance.”

— Horace

281. “I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are agreeable to myself, or that I am not pinfully conscious of them, than be wise, and chaptious.”

— Horace

282. “The populace may hiss me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself.”

— Horace

283. “Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror.”

— Horace

284. “A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.”

— Horace

285. “All things considered, nothing is beautiful.”

— Horace

286. “Sad people dislike the happy, and the happy the sad; the quick thinking the sedate, and the careless the busy and industrious.”

— Horace

287. “You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.”

— Horace

288. “To teach is to delight.”

— Horace

289. “Happy he who far from business, like the primitive are of mortals, cultivates with his own oxen the fields of his fathers, free from all anxieties of gain.”

— Horace

290. “Fate with impartial hand turns out the doom of high and low; her capacious urn is constantly shaking the names of all mankind.”

— Horace

291. “Money amassed either serves us or rules us.”

— Horace

292. “While fools shun one set of faults they run into the opposite one.”

— Horace

293. “Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.”

— Horace

294. “You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.”

— Horace

295. “Mistakes are their own instructors.”

— Horace

296. “Govern your temper, which will rule you unless kept in subjection.”

— Horace

297. “O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.”

— Horace

298. “What does not wasting time change! The age of our parents, worse than that of our grandsires, has brought us forth more impious still, and we shall produce a more vicious progeny.”

— Horace

299. “Do not try to find out – we’re forbidden to know – what end the gods have in store for me, or for you.”

— Horace

300. “Who knows if the gods above will add tomorrow’s span to this day’s sum?”

— Horace