home.social

#precept — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #precept, aggregated by home.social.

  1. A quotation from Horace

    Whene’er you lecture, be concise: the soul
    Takes in short maxims, and retains them whole:
    But pour in water when the vessel’s filled,
    It simply dribbles over and is spilled.
     
    [Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta
    percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles:
    omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat.]

    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. 335ff (2.3.335-337) (19 BC) [tr. Conington (1874)]

    More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/33634/

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #advice #brevity #briefness #counsel #edification #keepitsimple #lesson #maxim #moral #moralizing #precept #succinct #teaching #wisdom