Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world simply as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Emperor Augustus (also known as Octavian). The later Roman rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words. The most frequent themes of his Odes and verse Epistles are love, friendship, philosophy, and the art of poetry.

Horace's father had once been a slave but gained freedom before his birth. His father owned a small property and could afford to take his son to Rome and ensure he was getting the best available education in the school of Orbilius /a>. Horace also went to Athens and attended lectures at the Academy (founded by Plato). This education cause him to observe:

Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti Latio.

"Greece the captive, made her savage victor captive and brought the arts into rustic Latium."

(Horace, Epistles 2.1.156, in Horace : Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica (1929) edited and translated by H. R. Fairclough, p. 408 from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Art_in_ancient_Greece 8/19/18)

Other Hroace quotes:

Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.

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

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own: he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. Be fair or foul or rain or shine, the joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, but what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

Nothing is beautiful from every point of view.

A word once let out of the cage cannot be whistled back again.

He who is greedy is always in want.

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise - begin!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace 12/23/17

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-Roman-poet 12/23/17

http://www.azquotes.com/author/19590-Horace 12/23/17

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/horace12/23/17

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Horace 12/23/17

lecture by Korey D. Maas of Hilsdale College - western-heritage-2017 12/23/17