Fortuna Quotes
More Fortuna Quotes
Stultum facit fortuna, quem vult perdere.
— Translation: Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad.
— Maxim 911. One of the most famous renditions of the ancient Greek proverb (which is anonymous and dates to the 5th century BCE or earlier).
— The provenance of the proverb and its English versions is at Wikipedia's Euripides page, under the heading "Misattributed".
Fortis fortuna adiuvat. Fortune favours the brave.
— 8161 BC Phormio, 203.
Sí che vegga il mondo, quando la fortuna vuol torre a 'ssassinare uno uomo, quante diverse vie la piglia.
Benvenuto Cellini— Let all the world witness how many different means Fortune employs when she wishes to destroy a man.
— Autobiography, vol. 1, ch. 113; translation from Benvenuto Cellini (trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella) My Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 196.
Stultum facit fortuna, quem vult perdere.
publilius syrus— Translation: Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad.
— Maxim 911. One of the most famous renditions of the ancient Greek proverb (which is anonymous and dates to the 5th century BCE or earlier).
— The provenance of the proverb and its English versions is at Wikipedia's Euripides page, under the heading "Misattributed".
Genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum.
virgil— Th' immortal line in sure succession reigns;
The fortune of the family remains;
And grandsires' grandsires the long list contains.Book IV, lines 208–209 (translated by John Dryden).
Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta Jam sua: nos alia ex aliis in fata vocamur.
virgil— Live and be blest! 'tis sweet to feel
Fate's book is closed and under seal.
For us, alas! that volume stern
Has many another page to turn.Lines 493–494 (translated by John Conington).Cf. Dryden's translation:
Your fortune, happy pair, already made,
Leaves you no farther wish. My diff'rent state,
Avoiding one, incurs another fate.
Nate dea, quo fata trahunt retrahuntque, sequamur; Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
virgil— My chief, let Fate cry on or back,
'Tis ours to follow, nothing slack:
Whate'er betide, he only cures
The stroke of Fortune who endures.Lines 709–710 (translated by John Conington).Cf. Dryden's translation:
O goddess-born, resign'd in ev'ry state,
With patience bear, with prudence push your fate.
By suff'ring well, our Fortune we subdue;
Fly when she frowns, and, when she calls, pursue.
Barbaris ex fortuna pendet fides.
livy— The fidelity of barbarians depends on fortune.
— Livy, Annales, XXVIII. 17.
Non temere incerta casuum reputat, quem fortuna numquam decepit.
livy— He whom fortune has never deceived, rarely considers the uncertainty of human events.
— Livy, Annales, XXX. 30.
Præsente fortuna pejor est futuri metus.
Quintilian— Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.
— Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria, XII. 5.
Nihil est periculosius in hominibus mutata subito fortuna.
Quintilian— Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
— Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria, CCLX.
Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta Jam sua.
— Be happy ye, whose fortunes are already completed.
— Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), III. 493.
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi, Nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
— By many lands and over many a wave
I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
To bring you the last offering in death
And o’er dumb dust expend an idle breath;
For fate has torn your living self from me,
And snatched you, brother, O, how cruelly!
Yet take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
For sorrow’s tribute to the passing shade;
A brother’s tears have wet them o’er and o’er;
And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!
— CI (translated by Sir William Marris)
Breves et mutabiles vices rerum sunt, et fortuna nunquam simpliciter indulget.
— The fashions of human affairs are brief and changeable, and fortune never remains long indulgent.
— IV, 14, 20.
Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta Jam sua: nos alia ex aliis in fata vocamur.
— Cf. Dryden's translation:
Your fortune, happy pair, already made,
Leaves you no farther wish. My diff'rent state,
Avoiding one, incurs another fate.
Nate dea, quo fata trahunt retrahuntque, sequamur; Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
— Cf. Dryden's translation:
O goddess-born, resign'd in ev'ry state,
With patience bear, with prudence push your fate.
By suff'ring well, our Fortune we subdue;
Fly when she frowns, and, when she calls, pursue.
Variant translation of Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est :
— Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
Audentes fortuna juvat.
— Cf. Dryden's translation:
Fortune befriends the bold.
Vixi, et, quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi; Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit Imago.
virgil— My life is lived, and I have played
The part that Fortune gave,
And now I pass, a queenly shade,
Majestic to the grave.Lines 653–654 (translated by John Conington).Cf. Dryden's translation:
My fatal course is finish'd; and I go,
A glorious name, among the ghosts below.Cf. also Symmons' translation:
Yet have I lived!—and lived for noble ends!
My shade in glory to the shades descends.
Superat quoniam fortuna, sequamur, Quoque vocat, vertamus iter.
virgil— 'Tis fate diverts our course, and fate we must obey.Lines 22–23 (translated by John Dryden).
At vos, o superi, et divum tu maxime rector Juppiter, Arcadii, quaeso, miserescite regis Et patrias audite preces: si numina vestra Incolumem Pallanta mihi, si fata reseruant, Si visurus eum vivo et venturus in unum: Vitam oro, patiar quemvis durare laborem. Sin aliquem infandum casum, fortuna, minaris, Nunc, nunc o liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam, Dum curae ambiguae, dum spes incerta futuri, Dum te, care puer, mea sola et sera voluptas, Complexu teneo, gravior neu nuntius auris Vulneret.
virgil— Ye gods, and mighty Jove, in pity bring
Relief, and hear a father and a king!
If fate and you reserve these eyes, to see
My son return with peace and victory;
If the lov'd boy shall bless his father's sight;
If we shall meet again with more delight;
Then draw my life in length; let me sustain,
In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.
But if your hard decrees—which, O! I dread—
Have doom'd to death his undeserving head;
This, O this very moment, let me die!
While hopes and fears in equal balance lie;
While, yet possess'd of all his youthful charms,
I strain him close within these aged arms;
Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!Lines 578–580 (translated by John Dryden).Cf. Pitt's translation:
O fortuna, viris invida fortibus, Quam non æque bonis præmia dividis!
— O Fortune, that enviest the brave, what unequal rewards thou bestowest on the righteous!
— Seneca, Hercules Furens, 524.
Minor in parvis fortuna furit, Leviusque ferit leviora deus.
— Fortune is gentle to the lowly, and heaven strikes the humble with a light hand.
— Seneca, Hippolytus, Act IV. 1,124.
Volat ambiguis Mobilis alis hora; nec ulli Præstat velox fortuna fidem.
— The shifting hour flies with doubtful wings; nor does swift Fortune keep faith with anyone.
— Seneca, Hippolytus, Act IV. 1,141.
fortuna humana fingit artatque ut lubet.
— Fortune moulds and circumscribes human affairs as she pleases.
— Plautus, Captivi, II. 2. 54.
O fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis.
— O how Fortune, inopportune,
Apes the moon's inconstancy.
— Carmina Burana, No. 17, "O Fortuna", line 1; translation by David Parlett. [1]
Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa fortuna.
— Generally common sense is rare in that (higher) rank.
— Juvenal, Satires, VIII. 73.
La fortuna è una Dea senza cervello, E però tutto il giorno fa pazzie.
— VIII, 1.
— Translation: Fortune’s a goddess without brains, and so
The whole day long she’s doing foolish things.
— Translation reported in Harbottle’s Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 342.
Jam portum inveni, Spes et fortuna valete. Nil mihi vobiscum est, ludite nunc alios.
— Fortune and Hope farewell! I've found the port;
You've done with me: go now, with others sport.
— Version of the Greek epigram in the Anthologia; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233. Translation by Merivale. Latin by Thomas More, in the Progymnasmata prefixed to first ed. of More's Epigrams. (1520).
