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Fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere qua? ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. I will perform the function of a whetstone, which is able to restore sharpness to iron, though itself unable to cut.

Fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere qua? ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. I will perform the function of a whetstone, which is able to restore sharpness to iron, though itself unable to cut.

Approximate author period: c. 37 BC · classical

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Horace
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 37 BC · classical
author lifetime midpoint (-65–-8)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922) (1922 AD)

Printed page 7 · quotation 8 · Horace · Ars Poetica. 304.

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.

The voice behind the words.

Horace: Medallion depiction; not a verified lifetime likeness

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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