What will this boaster produce worthy of this mouthing? The mountains are in labor; a ridiculous mouse will be born.
[Lat., Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?
Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.]
Seest thou how pale the sated guest rises from supper, where the appetite is puzzled with varieties? The body, too, burdened with I yesterday's excess, weighs down the soul, and fixes to the earth this particle of the divine essence.
I praise her (Fortune) while she lasts; if she shakes her quick wings, I resign what she has given, and take refuge in my own virtue, and seek honest undowered Poverty.
"Painters and poets," you say, "have always had an equal license in bold invention." We know; we claim the liberty for ourselves and in turn we give it to others.
The common people are but ill judges of a man's merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them.
There is a proper measure in all things, certain limits beyond which and short of which right is not to be found. Who so cultivates the golden mean avoids the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.