Top 500 Horace Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 9 of 10

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

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

— Horace

405. “One Sallow does not make Summer.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

407. “Riches with their wicked inducements increase; nevertheless, avarice is never satisfied.”

— Horace

408. “Riches either serve or govern the possessor.”

— Horace

409. “Think of the wonders uncorked by wine! It opens secrets, gives heart to our hopes, pushes the cowardly into battle, lifts the load from anxious minds, and evokes talents. Thanks to the bottle’s prompting no one is lost for words, no one who’s cramped by poverty fails to find release.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

411. “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

412. “He possesses dominion over himself, and is happy, who can every day say, “I have lived.” Tomorrow the heavenly father may either involve the world in dark clouds, or cheer it with clear sunshine, he will not, however, render ineffectual the things which have already taken place.”

— Horace

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

— Horace

414. “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

415. “He makes himself ridiculous who is for ever repeating the same mistake.”

— Horace

416. “It is said that the propriety even of old Cato often yielded to the exciting influence of the grape.”

— Horace

417. “What with your friend you nobly share, At least you rescue from your heir.”

— Horace

418. “Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.”

— Horace

419. “Wine unlocks the breast.”

— Horace

420. “Who has courage to say no again and again to desires, to despise the objects of ambition, who is a whole in himself, smoothed and rounded.”

— Horace

421. “In truth it is best to learn wisdom, and abandoning all nonsense, to leave it to boys to enjoy their season of play and mirth.”

— Horace

422. “Whither, O god of wine, art thou hurrying me, whilst under thy all-powerful influence?”

— Horace

423. “The good refrain from sin from the pure love of virtue.”

— Horace

424. “Everything, virtue, glory, honor, things human and divine, all are slaves to riches.”

— Horace

425. “Take heed lest you stumble.”

— Horace

426. “Words challenge eternity.”

— Horace

427. “It’s a good thing to be foolishly gay once in a while.”

— Horace

428. “When you have well thought out your subject, words will come spontaneously.”

— Horace

429. “The covetous person is full of fear; and he or she who lives in fear will ever be a slave.”

— Horace

430. “Patience lightens the burthen we cannot avert.”

— Horace

431. “He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world.”

— Horace

432. “Victory is by nature superb and insulting.”

— Horace

433. “Our years Glide silently away. No tears, No loving orisons repair The wrinkled cheek, the whitening hair That drop forgotten to the tomb.”

— Horace

434. “To drink away sorrow.”

— Horace

435. “God has joined the innocent with the guilty.”

— Horace

436. “There are words and accents by which this grief can be assuaged, and the disease in a great measure removed.”

— Horace

437. “Believe it, future generations.”

— Horace

438. “He appears mad indeed but to a few, because the majority is infected with the same disease.”

— Horace

439. “Frugality is one thing, avarice another.”

— Horace

440. “The musician who always plays on the same string is laughed at.”

— Horace

441. “Joys do not fall to the rich alone; nor has he lived ill of whose birth and death no one took note.”

— Horace

442. “There are calumnies against which even innocence loses courage.”

— Horace

443. “Nothing is so difficult but that man will accomplish it.”

— Horace

444. “Be this our wall of brass, to be conscious of having done no evil, and to grow pale at no accusation.”

— Horace

445. “If things look badly to-day they may look better tomorrow.”

— Horace

446. “Despise not sweet inviting love-making nor the merry dance.”

— Horace

447. “Be prepared to go mad with fixed rule and method.”

— Horace

448. “Nonsense, now and then, is pleasant.”

— Horace

449. “All men do not admire and delight in the same objects.”

— Horace

450. “Oh! thou who are greatly mad, deign to spare me who am less mad.”

— Horace