Fu il vincer sempremai laudabil cosa,
Vincasi o per fortuna o per ingegno.
Canto XV, stanza 1 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
Fu il vincer sempre mai laudabil cosa | Vincasi o per fortuna o per ingegno.
XV, 1
Orlando furioso
Variant: Fu il vincer sempremai laudabil cosa,
Vincasi o per fortuna o per ingegno.
“In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.”
Original: (99) Rahim Khan
Variant: It was Homaira and me against the world.... In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)
Variant translations
Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
Book II, Ch. IV, pp. 113-115.
Physics
“Courtiers don’t take wagers against the king’s skill. There is the deadly danger of winning.”
Part III, The Mayors, section 3
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)
Oration on Lafayette (1834)
Context: There have doubtless been, in all ages, men, whose discoveries or inventions, in the world of matter or of mind, have opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence.
Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal Nobility, under the most absolute Monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities at the moment of attaining manhood, the principle of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above. He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He came to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one of the most effective champions of our Independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us. In the events of our Revolution, and in the forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of government. He wished to add nothing to it.
Introduction, p. 13
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)
Original: Perdere opportunità di lavoro gestite da individui inaffidabili è una fortuna. Far valere le proprie competenze professionali è un dovere, un diritto e un onore.
Source: prevale.net
“(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.”
Source: Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour
