Carpe diem

The original source for this Latin phrase is the lyric poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC – 8 BC), more widely known as Horace. The term is first found in Odes Book I:

Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
Aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

This quotation translates as:

While we’re talking, envious time is fleeing: pluck the day, put no trust in the future.

Many authors have quoted the Latin original, but it was Lord Byron’s use of the phrase that first began its integration into English. He included it in his 1817 work ‘Letters’, published in 1830 by Thomas Moore:

“I never anticipate, – carpe diem – the past at least is one’s own, which is one reason for making sure of the present.”

The noble George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron, is better known as a womaniser than as a Latin scholar. Nevertheless. he was well versed in the language and was a Horace aficionado.

Byron was taught Latin as a child by the son of his boot-maker and went on to write his version of Horace’s Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry), as ‘Hints from Horace‘, in 1811.

See also – Latin Phrases in English.

See also: the List of Proverbs.