“Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short 'twere wrong to lose a day.”

— Horace , book Satires

Book II, satire viii, line 96 (trans. Conington)
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)

Original

Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus; Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis.

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Horace 92

Roman lyric poet -65–-8 BC

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus;
Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis.
Book II, satire viii, line 96 (trans. Conington)
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Satires

“You may proclaim, good sirs, your fine philosophy
But till you feed us, right and wrong can wait!”

Bertolt Brecht The Threepenny Opera

Macheath in "Second Threepenny-Finale"; Act 2, scene 3, p. 67
Variant translations:
However much you twist, whatever lies you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on.
Used by the Pet Shop Boys, in "What Keeps Mankind Alive?", Can You Forgive Her (1993 EP)
Food first, then morality.
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

“But don’t you think,” I persist, “that it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

Audrey Niffenegger book The Time Traveler's Wife

Source: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003), p. 239

“For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do? It takes so much to hold on to hate—you lose your grip on what's important, you know?”

Harlan Coben book Caught

Source: Caught

“While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.”

Jeffrey Archer (1940) English author and former politician

“Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

"Distichs" in The Poems of Goethe (1853) as translated in the original metres by Edgar Alfred Bowring
Context: Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.
Not in the morning alone, not only at mid-day he charmeth;
Even at setting, the sun is still the same glorious planet.