Horace Quotes

If we allow the passions of our men to get full command then indeed will this war become a reproach to the names of liberty and civilization.

I know what you're going to say! 'They are men, and men should be free.' A free man is dangerous to himself and everyone else. Freedom should be left to those who can put it to good use.

Only man is permitted to live without rhythm in order that he can become free. However, he must of his own accord bring rhythm again into the chaos.

He who is allowed to do as he likes will soon run his head into a brick wall out of sheer frustration.

Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There's just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

I like to play my game. I don't want to do anything out of control, out of nature.

Men are subject to powerful passions and appetites, and, if unrestrained, are capable of ruthlessly riding roughshod over their neighbors and the community at large.

I have nothing but regret that I cannot continue to behave the way I behaved all my life, and I can't wait for a chance to behave immoderately again.

Discipline and freedom are not mutually exclusive but mutually dependent because otherwise, you'd sink into chaos.

Magic is wild, dangerous stuff. You never realize how useful limitations are until it's much too late.

It is only through restraint that man can manage not to suppress himself.

Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.

To enjoy freedom ... we have of course to control ourselves. We must not squander our powers, helplessly and ignorantly, squirting half the house in order to water a single rose.

Self-restraint may be alien to the human temperament, but humanity without restraint will dig its own grave.

Silence is the eternal duty of man.

You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.

From cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, has always been, and must always be, the task of education, as it is the moral of religion, philosophy, science, art, politics and economy; but a boy's will is his life, and he dies when it is broken, as the colt dies in harness, taking a new nature in becoming tame.

To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?

We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline.

Everything in moderation, with occasional excess.

Sometimes she has imagined what it would be like to fly, to live in the river, to run like a horse. She has dreamed of that freedom, that power, and fears the wildness in herself that wants to live as beasts live, moved purely by need and desire. She has felt torn between the heat of her limbs and the thoughts in her mind telling her to be careful and good and always calm. Don't scream or cry, don't run to him and throw yourself at his feet, pleading for him to take you in his arms, don't strip off your clothes and run naked to the water, wild with wanting.

If men live decently it is because discipline saves their very lives for them.

Unless the habit leads to happiness the best habit is to contract none.