Q0483

Horace

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

He who has begun has half done.
Thinker Horace
School Roman Literary Thought
Source Ars Poetica
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Ars Poetica, within the tradition of Roman Literary Thought. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Horace's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Horace. (n.d.). He who has begun has half done. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0483

MLA: Horace. “He who has begun has half done..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0483.

Chicago: Horace. “He who has begun has half done..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0483.

Same thinker

More from Horace

  1. Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.
  2. They change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.

All quotations by Horace

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme