Top 500 Horace Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “Youth is unduly busy with pampering the outer person.”

— Horace

302. “Let Apella the Jew believe it.”

— Horace

303. “Anger is short-lived madness.”

— Horace

304. “Even play has ended in fierce strife and anger.”

— Horace

305. “There are as many preferences as there are men.”

— Horace

306. “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

307. “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

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

— Horace

309. “Nothing is achieved without toil.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

318. “Brighter than Parian marble.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

324. “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

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

— Horace

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

— 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. “Boy, I loathe Persian luxury.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

332. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

339. “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

340. “To have begun is half the job; be bold and be sensible.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

342. “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

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

— Horace

344. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

348. “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

349. “Those who want much, are always much in need.”

— Horace

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

— Horace