“If my character is flawed by a few minor faults, but is otherwise decent and moral, if you can point out only a few scattered blemishes on an otherwise immaculate surface, if no one can accuse me of greed, or of prurience, or of profligacy, if I live a virtuous life, free of defilement (pardon, for a moment, my self-praise), and if I am to my friends a good friend, my father deserves all the credit… As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude and praise. I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedman's son.”

—  Horace , book Satires

Book I, satire vi, lines 65–92
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)

Original

Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea paucis mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos, si neque avaritiam neque sordes nec mala lustra obiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons, ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis... at hoc nunc laus illi debetur et a me gratia maior. nil me paeniteat sanum patris huius, eoque non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars, quod non ingenuos habeat clarosque parentis, sic me defendam.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If my character is flawed by a few minor faults, but is otherwise decent and moral, if you can point out only a few sca…" by Horace?
Horace photo
Horace 92
Roman lyric poet -65–-8 BC

Related quotes

Jamal Khashoggi photo

“It was painful for me several years ago when several friends were arrested. I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family.
I have made a different choice now. I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.”

Jamal Khashoggi (1958–2018) Saudi Arabian journalist

"Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable." in The Washington Post (18 September 2017)

Roza Otunbayeva photo

“I am a fighter. I believe in the bright future of my country. I believe that the people of my country deserve a decent life, and I know that my people want to live in freedom.”

Roza Otunbayeva (1950) Soviet diplomat

"The Situation Is Not Easy" by Lally Weymouth in Newsweek (26 April 2010)

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 56
The Gay Science (1882)

Cesare Borgia photo

“This government of yours does not please me, and I cannot trust it; you must change it and give me a pledge that you will observe everything you promised; otherwise you will soon realize that I do not want to live this way; and I will not …my friend …my enemy.”

Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) Duke of Romagna and former Catholic cardinal

as quoted by Roberto Ridolfi, 'The Life of Niccolo Machiavelli', page 74.

Voltaire photo

“Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Garantissez-moi de mes amis, écrivait Gourville proscrit et fugitif, je saurai me défendre de mes ennemis. ("Defend me from my friends," wrote Gourville, exile and fugitive, "I can defend myself from my enemies.") — Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan, Considérations sur l'esprit et les moeurs (1788): "De L'Amitié." Sénac de Meilhan was quoting Jean Hérault, sieur de Gourville (1625 - 1703).
The remark has often been attributed to Voltaire and to Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars.
Misattributed

William Cowper photo

“My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 37

Anne Sexton photo

“Only my books anoint me,
and a few friends,
those who reach into my veins.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: The Complete Poems

Josiah Royce photo

“We are all aware, if we have ever tried it, how empty and ghostly is a life lived for a long while in absolute solitude. Free me from my fellows, let me alone to work out the salvation of my own glorious self, and surely (so I may fancy) I shall now for the first time show who I am. No, not so; on the contrary I merely show in such a case who I am not. I am no longer friend, brother, companion, co-worker, servant, citizen, father, son; I exist for nobody; and ere-long, perhaps to my surprise, generally to my horror, I discover that I am nobody.”

Josiah Royce (1855–1916) United States philosopher

Lecture on Hegel

Stephen Chbosky photo

“It was the kind of kiss I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know I was never so happy in my whole life.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: And she kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Robert Greene photo

“Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Variation: Defend me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies myself The quote has been attributed to Voltaire, who was using it after Villars. Quoted in Connie Robertson, Dictionary of Quotations, 1998
Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Related topics