This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
[15]
Should
certain portions therefore betray a lack of finish
compared with what was begun in the days when
my affliction was less profound, I would ask that the
imperfections should be regarded with indulgence,
as being due to the cruel tyranny of fortune, which,
if it has not utterly extinguished, has at any rate
weakened such poor powers of intellect as I once
possessed. But for this very reason I must rouse
myself to face my task with greater spirit, since it
is easy to despise fortune, though it may be hard
to bear her blows. For there is nothing left that
she can do to me, since out of my calamities she
has wrought for me a security which, full of sorrow
though it be, is such that nothing can shake it.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.