Horace
Odes
and
Satires
Roman lyric poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus exerted a major influence on English poetry.
(December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC)
Horace, the son of a freed slave, who owned a small farm, later moved to Rome to work as a coactor, a middleman between buyers and sellers at auctions, receiving 1% of the purchase price for his services. The father ably spent considerable money on education of his son, accompanied him first to Rome for his primary education, and then sent him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy.
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He fought as a staff officer (tribunus militum) in the battle of Philippi. Alluding to famous literary models, he later claimed to throw away his shield and to flee for his salvation. When people declared an amnesty for those who fought against the victorious Octavian Augustus, Horace returned to Italy, only to find his estate confiscated and his father likely then dead. Horace claims that circumstances reduced him to poverty.
Nevertheless, he meaningfully gained a profitable lifetime appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury; this appointment allowed him to practice his poetic art.
Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius Rufus, who introduced him to Maecenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Maecenas became his patron and close friend and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills (contemporary Tivoli). A few months after the death of Maecenas, Horace died in Rome. Upon his death bed, Horace with no heirs relinquished his farm to Augustus, his friend and the emperor, for imperial needs, and it stands today as a spot of pilgrimage for his admirers.
“In love there are two evils: war and peace.”
“Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.(Mountains are in labour, a ridiculous mouse will be born)”
“I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are agreeable to myself, or that I am not pinfully conscious of them, than be wise, and chaptious.”
“Mingle a dash of folly with your wisdom.”
“Faults are soon copied.”
“He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.”
“Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, but any means money. ”
“Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.(They change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.)”
“Without love and laughter there is no joy; live amid love and laughter.”
“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.”
“He gets every vote who combines the useful with the pleasant, and who, at the same time he pleases the reader, also instructs him.”
“Sapere aude”
“Even as we speak, time speeds swiftly away.”
“An Widerständen zeigt sich das Genie des Generals, Glück verhüllt es.”
“How slight and insignificant is the thing which casts down or restores a mind greedy for praise.”
“Whatever advice you give, be brief.”
“wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone”
“Dimidium facti qui coepit habet: sapere aude" ("He who has begun is half done: dare to know!").”
“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 shinethe 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.”
“Dalam keadaan sengsara, jangan lupa mempertahankan kemantapan jiwa.”
“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”
“Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.”
“This is a fault common to singers that among their friends they were never inclined to sing when they were asked, unasked they never desist.”
“He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.”
“Carpe diem."(Odes: I.11)”
“Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur."If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all.”