Sovereign Maxims
Context: It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life. (5)
Οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδέως ζῆν ἄνευ τοῦ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως, οὐδὲ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ἄνευ τοῦ ἡδέως. ὅτῳ δὲ τοῦτο μὴ ὑπάρχει ἐξ οὗ ζῆν φρονίμως, καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ὑπάρχει, οὐκ ἔστι τοῦτον ἡδέως ζῆν.
“I can be forced to live without happiness,
But I will never consent to live without honor.”
L’on peut me réduire à vivre sans bonheur,
Mais non pas me résoudre à vivre sans honneur.
Don Gomès, act II, scene i.
Le Cid (1636)
“Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.”
Source: On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life
“Who lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks.”
Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.
Maxim 209.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
1930s, First Inaugural Address (1933)
“Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth living.”
Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori
et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.
VIII, line 83.
Satires, Satire VIII
“Say that I live, but in such wise that I would not live.”
Vivere me dices, sed sic ut vivere nolim
III, vii, 7; translation by Arthur Leslie Wheeler
Tristia (Sorrows)
