“When Fortune smiles, I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.”
Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit
Source: Content and Rich, Line 63; p. 59.
“We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged.”
Reported in David McCullough, 1776 (2005), p. 201.
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Do you have more details about the quote "We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged." by Henry Knox?
Henry Knox8
Continental Army and US Army general, US Secretary of War 1750–1806Related quotes
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Not Disraeli but La Rochefoucauld; it is Maxim 308 in his Reflections.
Misattributed
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
On a fait une vertu de la modération pour borner l’ambition des grands hommes, et pour consoler les gens médiocres de leur peu de fortune, et de leur peu de mérite.
Maxim 308.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Original: (it) Conchiudo adunque, che, variando la fortuna, e gli uomini stando nei loro modi ostinati, sono felici mentre concordano insieme, e come discordano sono infelici. Io giudico ben questo, che sia meglio essere impetuoso, che rispettivo, perchè la Fortuna è donna; ed è necessario, volendola tener sotto, batterla, ed urtarla; e si vede che la si lascia più vincere da questi che da quelli che freddamente procedono.
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 25, as translated by RM Adams
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American writer
Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I, p. 82.
“Prosperity proves men to be fortunate, while it is adversity which makes them great.”
Secunda felices, adversa magnos probent.
Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer
XXXI.
Panegyricus
