Top 500 Horace Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “The ear of the bridled horse is in the mouth.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

353. “Books have their destinies.”

— Horace

354. “Weigh well what your shoulders can and cannot bear.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

356. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

363. “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

364. “By the favour of the heavens.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

373. “Busy idleness urges us on.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

377. “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

378. “Punishment follows close on crime.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

381. “I shall not completely die.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

385. “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

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

— Horace

387. “Luck cannot change birth.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

390. “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

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

396. “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

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

— Horace

398. “Tear thyself from delay.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace