Horace Quotes

The secret of a happy life lies in renunciation. Renunciation is life.

First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence.

I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.

If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.

The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. To it the amenities of the world are so many graces of fate.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.

Naked I seek the camp of those who desire nothing.

I am totally unattached to material items.

With renunciation life begins.

I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

Other people have more than they need, I alone seem wanting.

The secret of happiness is renunciation.

The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.

Happiness does not come from consumption of things.

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.

The real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it. - Karla

To need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach to divinity.

If you want something then you lose everything. If you don’t want anything then you already have everything.

Diogenes found more rest in his tub than Alexander on his throne.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

It needs a good deal of philosophy not to be mortified by the thought of persons who have voluntarily abandoned everything that for the most of us makes life worth living and are devoid of envy of what they have missed. I have never made up my mind whether they are fools or wise men.

With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow - I have still joy in the midst of all these things.

Renounce all things, and thou shalt find all things; give up thy lust, and thou shalt find rest.

I don’t think I’m made for any earthly kind of pleasure.