Quotes from Horace

We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.

Labor diligently to increase your property.

Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.

Rule your mind or it will rule you.

Strength, wanting judgment and policy to rule, overturneth itself.

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

Strength without judgment falls by its own weight.

In times of stress, be bold and valiant.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.

Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points.

Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.

The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.

The envious pine at others' success; no greater punishment than envy was devised by Sicilian tyrants.

Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity.

Does he council you better who bids you, Money, by right means, if you can: but by any means, make money ?

Had the crow only fed without cawing she would have had more to eat, and much less of strife and envy to contend with. [To noise abroad our success is to invite envy and competition.]

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

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

Curst is the wretch enslaved to such a vice, Who ventures life and soul upon the dice.

He is always a slave who cannot live on little.

As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in tomorrow.

Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.

The short span of life forbids us to spin out hope to any length. Soon will night be upon you, and the fabled Shades, and the shadowy Plutonian home.