Top 500 Horace Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

354. “Books have their destinies.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

356. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

360. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

364. “Busy idleness urges us on.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

369. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

373. “It is difficult to speak of the universal specifically.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

376. “I shall not completely die.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

379. “By the favour of the heavens.”

— Horace

380. “Pry not into the affairs of others, and keep secret that which has been entrusted to you, though sorely tempted by wine and passion.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

382. “Those who go overseas find a change of climate, not a change of soul.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

385. “It is your business when the wall next door catches fire.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

387. “Luck cannot change birth.”

— Horace

388. “One Sallow does not make Summer.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

390. “Mark what and how great blessings flow from a frugal diet; in the first place, thou enjoyest good health.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

392. “Tear thyself from delay.”

— Horace

393. “Man learns more readily and remembers more willingly what excites his ridicule than what deserves esteem and respect.”

— Horace

394. “The cook cares not a bit for toil, toil, if the fowl be plump and fat.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

396. “Stronger than thunder’s winged force All-powerful gold can speed its course; Through watchful guards its passage make, And loves through solid walls to break.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

398. “Fiction intended to please, should resemble truth as much as possible.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

400. “A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame: Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips.”

— Horace