Horace Quotes

“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.”
― Horace

“I'll think of something," he temporized, and Horace nodded wisely, satisfied that Halt would indeed think of something. In Horace's world, that was what Rangers did best, and the best thing a warrior apprentice could do was let the Ranger get on with thinking while a warrior took care of walloping anyone who needed to be walloped along the way. He settled back in the saddle, contented with his lot in life.”
― John Flanagan, The Battle for Skandia

“There are always risks in battle. It's a dangerous business. The trick is to take the right ones.' [said Halt].
'How do you know which are the right ones?' Shigeru asked.
Halt glanced at his two younger companions. They grinned and answered in chorus, 'You wait and see if you win.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“But...what if I mistime it?"
Gilan smiled widely. "Well, in that case, I'll probably lop your head off your shoulders."

Horace and Gilan”
― John Flanagan, The Burning Bridge

“Easy climb, Kurokuma. You do it easily.'
'Not on your life,' Horace said... 'That's what we have Rangers for. They climb up sheer rock walls and crawl along narrow, slippery ledges. I'm a trained warrior, and I'm far to valuable to risk such shenanigans.'
'We're not valuable?' Will said, feigning insult.
Horace looked at him. 'We've got two of you. We can always afford to lose one,' he said firmly.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“But I wasn't happy... when I heard you two had assaulted Castle Macindaw with just thirty men,' [said Halt].
'Thirty-three,' mumbled Horace...
The Ranger gave him a withering look. 'Oh, pardon me... three more men does make a lot of difference.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“Mikeru was still puzzling over Horace's last remark. He frowned. 'Kurokuma, these shenanigans... What are they?'
'Shenanigans are what Rangers do. They usually involve doing things that risk breaking your neck or your leg.'
Mikeru nodded, filing the word away. 'I will remember this word,' he said. 'Shenanigans. It is a good word.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“Will had been taken aback in his confrontation with Arisaka to discover that his name- Chocho- meant" Butterfly "... He was puzzled to know why they had selected it. His friends, of course, delighted in helping him guess the reason.
'I assume it's because you're such a snazzy dresser,' Evanlyn said. 'You Rangers are a riot of color, after all.'...
'I think it might be more to do with the way he raced around the training ground, darting here and there to correct the way a man might be holding his shield, then dashing off to show someone how to put their body weight into their javelin cast,' said Horace, a little more sympathetically. Then he ruined the effect by adding thoughtlessly, 'I must say, your cloak did flutter around like a butterfly's wings.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“What the devil is Chocho?' Will whispered.
Horace's grin broadened. 'You are. It's what the men call you,' he said. Then he added, 'It's a term of great respect.'
Behind them, Halt nodded confirmation. 'Great respect,' he agreed.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“Horace normally didn't need anyone else to save his life. He was pretty skilled at doing it for himself.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“Come closer, Kurokuma. It's quite safe.'
Horace shuffled closer to the edge...
'Quite safe, my foot,' he muttered to himself. 'And what's this Kurokuma you keep calling me?'
'It's a term of great respect,' Shigeru told him.
'Great respect,' Shukin echoed.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“But...' Horace looked from one familiar face to another. 'How did you come to..?'
Before he could finish the question, Will interupted, thinking to clarify matters but only making them more puzzling...
'We were all in Toscana for the treaty signing,' he began, then corrected himself. 'Well, Evanlyn wasn't. She came later. But, when she did, she told us you were missing, so we all boarded Gundar's ship-you should see it. It's a new design that can sail into the wind. But anyway, that's not important. And just before we left, Selethen decided to join us-what with you being an old comrade in arms and all-and...'
He got no further. Halt, seeing the confusion growing on Horace's face, held up a hand to stop his babbling former apprentice...
Will stopped, a little embarrassed as he realized that he had been running off at the mouth.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“What was that, Kurokuma?' asked one of the escorts riding near him. The others chuckled at the name.
'Nothing important,' Horace said. Then he looked at them suspiciously. 'What's this Kurokuma business?'
The Senshi looked at him with a completely staight face.
'It's a term of great respect,' he said. Several others within earshot nodded confirmation. They too managed to remain straight-faced. It was a skill the Nihon-Jan had perfected.
'Great respect,' one of them echoed.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“All we could get out of them was that they were taking us to 'Kurokuma'. We didn't know if that was a place or a person. What does it mean, by the way?'
'I'm told it's a term of great respect,' Horace said, unwilling to admit that he didn't know.”
― John Flanagan, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“Already, Cullum felt a stirring of interest. The name Horace and the mention of an oakleaf symbol struck a chord in his memory. Sir Horace, the Oakleaf Knight, was a legendary figure in Araluen, even in a place as remote as Norgate. Of course, the more remote the location, the more garbled and fantastic the legends became. As Cullum had hear tell, Sir Horace had been a youth of sixteen when he defeated the tyrant Morgarath in single combat, slicing the head off the evil lord's shoulders with one might strocke of a massive broadsword.

Then, in the company of the equally legendary Ranger Halt, Sir Horace had traveled across the Stormwhite Sea to defeat the Riders from the East and rescue Princess Cassandra and her companion, the apprentice Ranger known as Will.
Will! The significance of the name suddenly registered with the innkeeper. The jongleur's name was Will. Now here he was, in a cowled cloak, festooned with recurve bow and a quiver of arrows. He looked more closely and saw the hilt of a heavy saxe knife just visible at his waist. No doubt about it, Cullum thought, these cheerful young men were two of Araluen's greatest heroes!”
― John Flanagan, The Siege of Macindaw

“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret
et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix.
(Drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she'll come right back,
Victorious over your ignorant confident scorn.)”
― Horace, The Epistles of Horace

“You'll like it less when you hear what they've been building. It's a big raised platform at the end of the square about two metres above the ground, with steps running up to it.'

'Like a stage?' Erak suggested. 'Maybe they're going to put on a play.'

'Or an execution,' Horace said.”
― John Flanagan, Erak's Ransom

“Captive Greece took captive her savage conquerer and brought the arts to rustic Latium”
― Horace, Epistles Book II and Epistle to the Pisones

“When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear”
― S.F. Chandler, We the Great Are Misthought

“Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies
In wisdom:therefore study to be wise.”
― Horace

“Our way would seem quite familiar to the Romans, more by far than the Greek way. Socrates in the Symposium, when Alcibiades challenged him to drink two quarts of wine, could have done so or not as he chose, but the diners-out of Horace's day had no such freedom. He speaks often of the master of the drinking, who was always appointed to dictate how much each man was to drink. Very many unseemly dinner parties must have paved the way for that regulation. A Roman in his cups would've been hard to handle, surly, quarrelsome, dangerous. No doubt there had been banquets without number which had ended in fights, broken furniture, injuries, deaths. Pass a law then, the invariable Roman remedy, to keep drunkenness within bounds. Of course it worked both ways: everybody was obliged to empty the same number of glasses and the temperate man had to drink a great deal more than he wanted, but whenever laws are brought in to regulate the majority who have not abused their liberty for the sake of the minority who have, just such results come to pass. Indeed, any attempt to establish a uniform average in that stubbornly individual phenomenon, human nature, will have only one result that can be foretold with certainty: it will press hardest on the best.”
― Edith Hamilton, The Roman Way

“Until then, carpe diem.'
'What?'
'It's Latin,' I said. 'It means, complain in daylight.”
― Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“Omitte mirari beatæ Fumum et opes strepitumque Romæ. (" Cease to admire the smoke, wealth, and noise of prosperous Rome. ")”
― Horace, The Odes of Horace

“I feel that when I travel I can change myself a little, and I return from a journey not quite the same self I was.”
― Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors

“Celebrate my heart, at ease or on fire, in my usual featherbrained way.

Horace, Roman Poet
Ode I-6, 23 BCE”
― Vivian Swift, When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put

“But the seraphs that watched from above knew the tale: Gods and mortals may change their skies, but not their souls, who rush across the sea.”
― Grace Curley, The Light that Binds Us

“Ode I.11

Leucon, no one's allowed to know his fate,
Not you, not me: don't ask, don't hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be our last winter, it could be many
More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:
Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines
And forget about hope. Time goes running, even
As we talk. Take the present, the future's no one's affair”
― Burton Raffel, The Essential Horace Odes, Epodes, Satires and Epistles