“So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.”

—  Lucretius

Book III, lines 55–58 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)

Original

Quo magis in dubiis hominem spectare periclis convenit adversisque in rebus noscere qui sit; nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo eliciuntur et eripitur persona, manet res.

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Lucretius 45
Roman poet and philosopher -94–-55 BC

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