Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace that has become an aphorism. It is popularly translated as Seize the day. Carpe literally means “to pick, pluck, pluck off, cull, crop, gather”, but Ovid used the word in the sense of, “To enjoy, seize, use, make use of”. In Horace, the phrase is part of the longer Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero – Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future, and the ode says that the future is unforeseen, and that instead one should scale back one’s hopes to a brief future, and drink one’s wine. This phrase is usually understood against Horace’s Epicurean background.
