Top 500 Horace Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “Joyful let the soul be in the present, let it disdain to trouble about what is beyond and temper bitterness with a laugh. Nothing is blessed forever.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

303. “Take too much pleasure in good things, you’ll feel The shock of adverse fortune makes you reel.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

306. “Noble descent and worth, unless united with wealth, are esteemed no more than seaweed.”

— Horace

307. “Alas! the fleeting years, how they roll on!”

— Horace

308. “When I caution you against becoming a miser, I do not therefore advise you to become a prodigal or a spendthrift.”

— Horace

309. “The short span of life forbids us to take on far-reaching hopes.”

— Horace

310. “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

311. “The man who is just and resolute will not be moved from his settled purpose, either by the misdirected rage of his fellow citizens, or by the threats of an imperious tryant.”

— Horace

312. “Get money; by just means. if you can; if not, still get money.”

— Horace

313. “Be this thy brazen bulwark, to keep a clear conscience, and never turn pale with guilt.”

— Horace

314. “By heaven you have destroyed me, my friends!”

— Horace

315. “A good resolve will make any port.”

— Horace

316. “Nothing is achieved without toil.”

— Horace

317. “If the crow had been satisfied to eat his prey in silence, he would have had more meat and less quarreling and envy.”

— Horace

318. “Brighter than Parian marble.”

— Horace

319. “Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers.”

— Horace

320. “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

321. “Twixt hope and fear, anxiety and anger.”

— Horace

322. “Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points.”

— Horace

323. “Boy, I loathe Persian luxury.”

— Horace

324. “Anger is short-lived madness.”

— Horace

325. “No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.”

— Horace

326. “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

327. “What may not be altered is made lighter by patience.”

— Horace

328. “There is need of brevity, that the thought may run on.”

— Horace

329. “It is not enough for poems to be fine; they must charm, and draw the mind of the listener at will.”

— Horace

330. “Care clings to wealth: the thirst for more Grows as our fortunes grow.”

— Horace

331. “A good and faithful judge ever prefers the honorable to the expedient.”

— Horace

332. “A host is like a general: calamities often reveal his genius.”

— Horace

333. “Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start.”

— Horace

334. “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.”

— Horace

335. “Happy is the man to whom nature has given a sufficiency with even a sparing hand.”

— Horace

336. “Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest he fail in the lists and the spectators laugh.”

— Horace

337. “Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.”

— Horace

338. “Naked I seek the camp of those who desire nothing.”

— Horace

339. “Unless the vessel be pure, everything which is poured into it will turn sour.”

— Horace

340. “What wonders does not wine! It discloses secrets; ratifies and confirms our hopes; thrusts the coward forth to battle; eases the anxious mind of its burden; instructs in arts. Whom has not a cheerful glass made eloquent! Whom not quite free and easy from pinching poverty!”

— Horace

341. “Where there are many beauties in a poem I shall not cavil at a few faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature.”

— Horace

342. “He who is upright in his way of life and free from sin.”

— Horace

343. “Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy.”

— Horace

344. “The avarice person is ever in want; let your desired aim have a fixed limit.”

— Horace

345. “Sport begets tumultuous strife and wrath, and wrath begets fierce quarrels and war to the death.”

— Horace

346. “Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.”

— Horace

347. “Drawing is the true test of art.”

— Horace

348. “Enjoy thankfully any happy hour heaven may send you, nor think that your delights will keep till another year.”

— Horace

349. “For everything divine and human, virtue, fame, and honor, now obey the alluring influence of riches.”

— Horace

350. “The ear of the bridled horse is in the mouth.”

— Horace