“He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, "I have lived: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine."”
Ille potens sui
laetusque deget, cui licet in diem
dixisse "vixi: cras vel atra
nube polum pater occupato
vel sole puro."
Book III, ode xxix, line 41
John Dryden's paraphrase:
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day.
Odes (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)
