Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter LVII
Necessitas etiam timidos fortes facit.
“Even if work were not an economic necessity, it is a spiritual necessity.”
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)
“Even Zathras say, Braves suck.”
Posted on Compuserve, (1997) http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-3559.
“Making a virtue of necessity.”
III, 86
Rifacimento of Orlando Innamorato
Section 3, member 4, subsection 1.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III
“Not even the gods fight against necessity.”
Quoted by Plato in the dialogue Protagoras, 345d http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0177%3Atext%3DProt.%3Asection%3D345d (Simonides Fr. 37.1.27 ff.).
Variant translations:
The gods do not fight against necessity.
Not even the gods war against necessity.
I praise and love all men who do no sin willingly; but with necessity even the gods do not contend.
316.
Aes Triplex (1878)
Variant: Even if the doctor does not give a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week.
“3313. Make a Virtue of Necessity.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Necessity makes a joke of civilization.”
In Joy Still Felt (1980), p. 124
General sources
