A difficult line from Horace (From a photograph I took at the Corcoran Gallery)



Horace 

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.

He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.

If you wish me to weep, you must mourn first yourself.

Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.

The appearance of right oft leads us wrong.

There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.

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

He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

The covetous man is ever in want.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.
   
Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.
   
To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
   
Cease to ask what the morrow will bring forth. And set down as gain each day that Fortune grants.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
   
In adversity remember to keep an even mind.
   
It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods, to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.

Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but all are overwhelmed in eternal night, unwept, unknown, because they lack a sacred poet.
   
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
   
Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow! [Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.]

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

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

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

There is measure in all things.

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.