A quotation from Horace

Dear sire, and offspring worthy of your fire!
We bards are dupes to what ourselves admire.
Would I be brief — I grow confused and coarse;
Who aims at smoothness, fails in fire and force;
In him who soars aloft, bombast is found;
Who fears to face the tempest, crawls aground.
Who courts variety and fain would ring
A thousand changes on the self-same string,
Will paint, as ’twere in fancy’s wildest mood
Boars in the wave and dolphins in the wood.
Thus even error, shun’d without address,
Breeds error, diff’rent in its kind, not less.
 
[Maxima pars vatum, pater et iuvenes patre digni,
decipimur specie recti: brevis esse laboro,
obscurus fio; sectantem levia nervi
deficiunt animique; professus grandia turget;
serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellae:
qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam,
delphinum silvis adpingit, fluctibus aprum:
in vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 2, ep. 3 “Art of Poetry [Ars Poetica; To the Pisos],” l. 24ff (2.3.24-31) (19 BC) [tr. Howes (1845)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/14582/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #horace #arspoetica #poet #bombast #brevity #brief #caution #clarity #criticism #edit #error #explanation #extremes #faults #force #mistake #obscurity #overcompensation #overcorrection #poetry #smoothness #strangeness #style #succinctness #talent #timidity #tryingtoohard #unintelligibility #variety #vigor #writing

Trying too hard?

For those of you who have been following my posts, you know that the last 3 months have been rather hard on me. For those of you who just stumbled upon this post, well... I had surgery to repair my prosthetic hip, it went well for a while until my hip popped out, I endured the most pain I've ever had for 5 hours straight, I needed emergency surgery and then, in that same week, my loyal furry soulmate passed away. The trauma of the dislocation and surgery, the extra damage that happened in my hip area which caused me so much extra pain, and then having to do the hardest thing... It really hit me hard and I struggled so much not to get into a dark depression. It helped a lot that mum was at my place, and that her dog Bas came over at times (in the end he stayed for a while, as it was easier). But it was hard, and now I am scared that I may still fall into some dark hole because I am running out of energy to keep going... […]

https://cynnisblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/trying-too-hard/

@ReturnOfSchnuckster #tryingtoohard 🙄😬