Noble descent and worth, unless united with wealth, are esteemed no more than seaweed.
Lightning strikes the tops of the mountains.
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
When we try to avoid one fault, we are led to the opposite, unless we be very careful.
Think of the wonders uncorked by wine! It opens secrets, gives heart to our hopes, pushes the cowardly into battle, lifts the load from anxious minds, and evokes talents. Thanks to the bottle's prompting no one is lost for words, no one who's cramped by poverty fails to find release.
Happy he who far from business, like the primitive are of mortals, cultivates with his own oxen the fields of his fathers, free from all anxieties of gain.