III, iv, 79
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters From the Black Sea)
“What though strength fails? Boldness is certain to win praise. In mighty enterprises, it is enough to have had the determination.”
Quod si deficiant vires, audacia certe
Laus erit: in magnis et voluisse sat est.
Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet
Variant translation: Even if strength fail, boldness at least will deserve praise: in great endeavors even to have had the will is enough.
II, x, 5.
Elegies
Thomas Carlyle book Latter-Day Pamphlets
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)
“People do not lack strength, they lack will.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
“Though it becomes not man himself to praise.”
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
Ben che stia mal che l'uom se stesso lodi.
Canto XLIII, stanza 12 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“Why do you lack the strength to escape the obligation to breathe?”
Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay
A Short History of Decay (1949)
Lalleshwari (1320–1392) Indian writer, mystic and saint
Naked Songs, p. 18
Poetry, From Kashmiri Poetry
Leon MacLaren (1910–1994) British philosopher
Leon MacLaren, The Machinery of Government, 1998
“Evil is the moment when I lack the strength to be true to the Good that compels me.”
Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher
Source: Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil
