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#misfortune

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A quotation from John Adams

The Stream of Life sometimes glides smoothly on, through flowry meadows and enamell’d planes. At other times it draggs a winding reluctant Course through offensive Boggs and dismal gloomy Swamps. The same road now leads us thro’ a spacious Country fraught with evry delightful object, Then plunges us at once, into miry Sloughs, or stops our passage with craggy and inaccessible mountains. The free roving Songster of the forest, now rambles unconfin’d, and hopps from Spray to Spray but the next hour perhaps he alights to pick the scattered Grain and is entangled in the Snare. The Ship, which, wafted by a favourable gale, sails prosperously upon the peaceful Surface, by a sudden Change of weather may be tossed by the Tempest, and driven by furious, opposite winds, upon rocks or quicksands. In short nothing in this world enjoys a constant Series of Joy and prosperity.

John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Diary (1756-03-27)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/adams-john/30195/

WIST Quotations · Diary (1756-03-27) - Adams, John | WIST QuotationsThe Stream of Life sometimes glides smoothly on, through flowry meadows and enamell’d planes. At other times it draggs a winding reluctant Course through offensive Boggs and dismal gloomy Swamps. The same road now leads us thro’ a spacious Country fraught with evry delightful object, Then plunges us at once,…

A quotation from Cicero

Men ought to feel most annoyed with what has been brought about by their own fault.
 
[Ea molestissime ferre homines debent quae ipsorum culpa contracta sunt.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Epistulae ad Fratrem Quintum [Letters to His Brother Quintus], Book 1, Letter 1, sec. 3 (1.1.3) (60 BC) [tr. Williams (Loeb) (1928)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/cicero-marcus-tulliu…

A quotation from Horace

I know, you always come out on top, the great exception.
Well, someday your enemies will laugh and laugh. Consider:
life is full of changes, and who can stand them better? A man
who treats his body and proud mind to luxury, addicting them,
or someone used to little, and to thinking of the future,
a man wise in peacetime, preparing then the tools of war?
 
[Uni nimirum recte tibi semper erunt res,
o magnus posthac inimicis risus. Uterne
ad casus dubios fidet sibi certius? Hic qui
pluribus adsuerit mentem corpusque superbum,
an qui contentus parvo metuensque futuri
in pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello?]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Satires [Saturae, Sermones], Book 2, # 2, “Quae virtus et quanta,” l. 106ff (2.2.106-111) (30 BC) [tr. Fuchs (1977)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/horace/76560/

A quotation from Montaigne

We must learn to suffer whatever we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of discords as well as of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only some of them, what could he sing? He has got to know how to use all of them and blend them together. So too must we with good and ill, which are of one substance with our life. Without such blending our being cannot be: one category is no less necessary than the other.
 
[Il faut apprendre à souffrir, ce qu’on ne peut eviter. Nostre vie est composee, comme l’harmonie du monde, de choses contraires, aussi de divers tons, doux & aspres, aigus & plats, mols & graves : Le Musicien qui n’en aymeroit que les uns, que voudroit il dire ? Il faut qu’il s’en sçache servir en commun, & les mesler. Et nous aussi, les biens & les maux, qui sont consubstantiels à nostre vie. Nostre estre ne peut sans ce meslange, & y est l’une bande non moins necessaire que l’autre. ]

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essay (1587), “Of Experience [De l’Experience], Essays, Book 3, ch. 13 (3.13) (1595) [tr. Screech (1987)]

Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/montaigne-michel-de/…

A quotation from Euripides

CHORUS: Goodbye! Good luck! If you can, be lucky, steer clear of disaster. That’s happiness for mortals.
 
[ΧΟΡΟΣ: χαίρετε: χαίρειν δ᾽ ὅστις δύναται
   καὶ ξυντυχίᾳ μή τινι κάμνει
   θνητῶν, εὐδαίμονα πράσσει.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Electra [Ἠλέκτρα], l. 1357ff (c. 420 BC) [tr. Wilson (2016)]

Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/euripides/75110/

A quotation from Victor Hugo

Thus it was that with the shadows deepening about him, with his hopes fading one after another, Monsieur Mabeuf had remained serene, rather childishly but profoundly so. His spiritual states resembled the swing of a pendulum. Once set in motion by an illusion, the swing continued for a long time, even after the illusion had vanished. A clock does not stop the moment one loses the key.
 
[C’est ainsi qu’à travers cet obscurcissement qui se faisait autour de lui, toutes ses espérances s’éteignant l’une après l’autre, M. Mabeuf était resté serein, un peu puérilement, mais très profondément. Ses habitudes d’esprit avaient le va-et-vient d’un pendule. Une fois monté par une illusion, il allait très longtemps, même quand l’illusion avait disparu. Une horloge ne s’arrête pas court au moment précis où l’on en perd la clef.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 3 “Marius,” Book 5 “The Excellence of Misfortune,” ch. 4 (3.5.4) (1862) [tr. Denny (1976)]

Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/hugo-victor/75017/