Top 500 Horace Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “Sport begets tumultuous strife and wrath, and wrath begets fierce quarrels and war to the death.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

354. “Life is largely a matter of expectation.”

— Horace

355. “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

356. “Rains driven by storms fall not perpetually on the land already sodden, neither do varying gales for ever disturb the Caspian sea.”

— Horace

357. “A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness.”

— Horace

358. “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

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

— Horace

360. “Fire, if neglected, will soon gain strength.”

— Horace

361. “We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.”

— Horace

362. “By the favour of the heavens.”

— Horace

363. “Learned or unlearned we all must be scribbling.”

— Horace

364. “Whom does undeserved honour please, and undeserved blame alarm, but the base and the liar?”

— Horace

365. “Wherein is the use of getting rid of one thorn out of many?”

— Horace

366. “It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar – that I call an achievement.”

— Horace

367. “Cease to admire the smoke, wealth, and noise of prosperous Rome.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

369. “In the word of no master am I bound to believe.”

— Horace

370. “Books have their destinies.”

— Horace

Featured in: Book Quotes

371. “You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one seem original.”

— Horace

372. “Painters and poets alike have always had license to dare anything! We know that, and we both claim and allow to others in their turn this indulgence.”

— Horace

373. “Get what start the sinner may, Retribution, for all her lame leg, never quits his track.”

— Horace

374. “What odds does it make to the man who lives within Nature’s bounds, whether he ploughs a hundred acres or a thousand?”

— Horace

375. “Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability.”

— Horace

376. “The mad is either insane or he is composing verses.”

— Horace

377. “Money is a handmaiden, if thou knowest how to use it A mistress, if thou knowest not.”

— Horace

378. “Many terms which have now dropped out of favour will be revived, and those that are at present respectable, will drop out, if useage so choose with whom resides the decision and the judgment and the code of speech.”

— Horace

379. “The jackdaw, stript of her stolen colours, provokes our laughter.”

— Horace

380. “In going abroad we change the climate not our dispositions.”

— Horace

381. “Drive Nature from your door with a pitchfork, and she will return again and again.”

— Horace

382. “Keep clear of courts: a homely life transcends The vaunted bliss of monarchs and their friends.”

— Horace

383. “How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!”

— Horace

384. “Those unacquainted with the world take pleasure in intimacy with great men; those who are wiser fear the consequences.”

— Horace

385. “Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.”

— Horace

386. “Mighty to inspire new hopes, and able to drown the bitterness of cares.”

— Horace

387. “Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.”

— Horace

388. “I shall not completely die.”

— Horace

389. “Avoid inquisitive persons, for they are sure to be gossips, their ears are open to hear, but they will not keep what is entrusted to them.”

— Horace

390. “Busy idleness urges us on.”

— Horace

391. “A bad reader soon puts to flight both wise men and fools.”

— Horace

392. “Luck cannot change birth.”

— Horace

393. “Who’s started has half finished.”

— Horace

394. “In the midst of hopes and cares, of apprehensions and of disquietude, regard every day that dawns upon you as if it was to be your last; then super-added hours, to the enjoyment of which you had not looked forward, will prove an acceptable boon.”

— Horace

395. “At Rome I love Tibur; then, like a weathercock, at Tibur Rome.”

— Horace

396. “Is virtue raised by culture, or self-sown?”

— Horace

397. “Tear thyself from delay.”

— Horace

398. “A word, once sent abroad, flies irrevocably.”

— Horace

399. “Success in the affairs of life often serves to hide one’s abilities, whereas adversity frequently gives one an opportunity to discover them.”

— Horace

400. “The muse does not allow the praise-de-serving here to die: she enthrones him in the heavens.”

— Horace