"A word once uttered can never be recalled"
About this Quote
Speech is treated here like physics: once the sound leaves your mouth, it becomes part of the world’s irreversible record. Horace, the Roman poet of polish and proportion, isn’t offering a pious warning so much as a practical ethic for a culture obsessed with reputation. In a society where patronage, politics, and social standing ran on public perception, the tongue could be a career-making instrument or a self-authored exile. The line’s power lies in its plain finality: no moral thunder, no ornate metaphor, just the cold fact that language has consequences you don’t get to edit after publication.
The subtext is social, not merely personal. In Rome, words traveled: through dinner parties, courts, forums, letters. Once “uttered,” they’re no longer yours; they belong to listeners, gossips, rivals, historians. Horace understands how speech mutates the moment it leaves its source. Apologies, clarifications, even denials are secondary texts trying to overwrite the first edition, usually too late and often less believable. The quote anticipates the modern asymmetry between expression and control: you can generate a statement instantly, but you can’t manage its afterlife.
As a poet, Horace also points inward. Revision is literature’s privilege; real-time speech is a draft you must live with. The intent, then, is discipline: speak as if permanence is the default, because in public life it is. Ironically, the line itself survives precisely because it practices what it preaches: compact, memorable, hard to unsay.
The subtext is social, not merely personal. In Rome, words traveled: through dinner parties, courts, forums, letters. Once “uttered,” they’re no longer yours; they belong to listeners, gossips, rivals, historians. Horace understands how speech mutates the moment it leaves its source. Apologies, clarifications, even denials are secondary texts trying to overwrite the first edition, usually too late and often less believable. The quote anticipates the modern asymmetry between expression and control: you can generate a statement instantly, but you can’t manage its afterlife.
As a poet, Horace also points inward. Revision is literature’s privilege; real-time speech is a draft you must live with. The intent, then, is discipline: speak as if permanence is the default, because in public life it is. Ironically, the line itself survives precisely because it practices what it preaches: compact, memorable, hard to unsay.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by Horace
Add to List
