Quotes from Horace

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

What exile from his country is able to escape from himself?

The good hate sin because they love virtue. [Lat., Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore.]

Blind self-love, vanity, lifting aloft her empty head, and indiscretion, prodigal of secrets more transparent than glass, follow close behind.

Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year?

My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.

What can be found equal to modesty, uncorrupt faith, the sister of justice, and undisguised truth?

We are free to yield to truth.

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

Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach, So shalt thou live beyond the reach Of adverse Fortune's pow'r; Not always tempt the distant deep, Nor always timorously creep Along the treach'rous shore.

And seek for truth in the groves of Academe.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.

Fidelity is the sister of justice.

If nothing is delightful without love and jokes, then live in love and jokes.

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

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living.

The good refrain from sin from the pure love of virtue.

With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.

He wears himself out by his labours, and grows old through his love of possessing wealth.

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