Videri Quam Esse Quotes

A good disposition I far prefer to gold; for gold is the gift of fortune; goodness of disposition is the gift of nature. I prefer much rather to be called good than fortunate.
[Lat., Bono ingenio me esse ornatam, quam auto multo mavolo.
Aurum fortuna invenitur, natura ingenium donum.
Bonam ego, quam beatam me esse nimio dici mavolo. ~ Plautus

No sensible man (among the many things that have been written on this kind) ever imputed inconsistency to another for changing his mind.
[Lat., Nemo doctus unquam (multa autem de hoc genere scripta sunt) mutationem consili inconstantiam dixit esse.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur.
If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. ~ Horace

Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest. (Let no man belong to another that can belong to himself.) ~ Paracelsus

Cheerless poverty has no harder trial than this, that it makes men the subject of ridicule.
[Lat., Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.] ~ Juvenal

Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will stick to it. Second thoughts are best as the proverb says.
[Lat., Cujusvis hominis est errare; nullius, nisi insipientis, in errore perseverae. Posteriores enim cogitationes (ut aiunt) sapientiores solent esse.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

The dreadful fear of hell is to be driven out, which disturbs the life of man and renders it miserable, overcasting all things with the blackness of darkness, and leaving no pure, unalloyed pleasure.
[Lat., Et metus ille foras praeceps Acheruntis agundus,
Funditis humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo,
Omnia suffuscans mortis nigrore, neque ullam
Esse voluptatem liquidam puramque relinquit.] ~ Lucretius

How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one is content with that lot in life which he has chosen, or which chance has thrown in his way, but praises those who follow a different course?
[Lat., Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo quam sibi sortem,
Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit, illa
Contentus vivat? laudet diversa sequentes.] ~ Horace

To be in the mind and to be known are the same thing: in this domain esse est percipi. ~ Zeno Vendler

What does Spinoza say in his Ethics? - "Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam." Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. The ~ Viktor E. Frankl

In opposition to the absolutely and directly false Heideggerian theses attributing to Aquinas an onto-theo-logical metaphysics of Being, Aquinas's actual and genuine conception of God is articulated in the famous formulation according to which God is ipsum esse per se subsistens, Being itself subsisting through itself.

God is not a being (ens,) among other beings, thus not anything like the highest, first, or maximal being.

(p. 43) ~ Lorenz B. Puntel

The function of staying alive is automatic, living your life is not, living takes knowing what you are doing and where you are going. ~ Mark Quam

Besides that, when elsewhere the harvest of wheat is most abundant, there it comes up less by one-fourth than what you have sowed. There, methinks, it were a proper place for men to sow their wild oats, where they would not spring up.
[Lat., Post id, frumenti quum alibi messis maxima'st
Tribus tantis illi minus reddit, quam obseveris.
Heu! istic oportet obseri mores malos,
Si in obserendo possint interfieri.] ~ Plautus

Tota vita nihil aliud quam ad mortem iter est.
The whole of life is nothing but a journey to death. ~ Seneca The Younger

She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees. (Esse) ~ Czeslaw Milosz

The diseases of the mind are more and more destructive than those of the body.
[Lat., Morbi perniciores pluresque animi quam corporis.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Men in no way approach so nearly to the gods as in doing good to men.
[Lat., Homines ad deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Esse est percipi, to be is to be perceived, said good old Berkeley; but, according to most philosophers, he was wrong. Yet, obviously, there are things for which the adage holds. Perception, trivially, to begin with. If elements of conscious awareness
pains, tickles, feelings of heat and cold, sensory qualia of colors, sounds, and the like
have any existence, it must consist in their being perceived by a subject ... This shows, of course, that such experiences are epiphenomenal, at least with respect to the physical world. ~ Zeno Vendler

He who would eat the kernel, must crack the shell.
[Lat., Qui e nuce nucleum esse vult, frangat nucem.] ~ Plautus

But assuredly Fortune rules in all things; she raised to eminence or buries in oblivion everything from caprice rather than from well-regulated principle.
[Lat., Sed profecto Fortuna in omni re dominatur; ea res cunctas ex lubidine magis, quam ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque.] ~ Sallust

Quot libros, quam breve tempus - so many books, so little time ~ Stephen King

What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs?
[Lat., Quid enim est melius quam memoria recte factorum, et libertate contentum negligere humana?] ~ Marcus Junius Brutus The Younger

In laboring to be concise, I become obscure.
[Lat., Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.] ~ Horace

Indeed, the most intense feeling we know of, intense to the point of blotting out all other experiences, namely, the experience of great bodily pain, is at the same time the most private and least communicable of all. Not only is it perhaps the only experience which we are unable to transform into a shape fit for public appearance, it actually deprives us of our feeling for reality to such an extent that we can forget it more quickly and easily than anything else. There seems to be no bridge from the most radical subjectivity, in which I am no longer "recognizable," to the outer world of life.42 Pain, in other words, truly a borderline experience between life as "being among men" (inter homines esse) and death, is so subjective and removed from the world of things and men that it cannot assume an appearance at all.43 ~ Hannah Arendt

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
(Pluck the day [for it is ripe], trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.) ~ Horace

Knowest thou not that kings have long hands?
[Lat., An nescis longos regibus esse manus?] ~ Ovid

It is a common saying that many pecks of salt must be eaten before the duties of friendship can be discharged.
[Lat., Vulgo dicitur multos modios salis simul edendos esse, ut amicitia munus expletum sit.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy (beatum esse velle), our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then became objects of our desires. ~ Hannah Arendt

For the gods, instead of what is most pleasing, will give what is most proper. Man is dearer to them than he is to himself.
[Lat., Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt di,
Carior est illis homo quam sibi.] ~ Juvenal

Here are the essentials of a happy life,
my dear friend: money not worked for,
but inherited; some land not unproductive;
a hearth fire always going; law suits never;
the toga rarely worn; a calm mind;
a gentleman's strong and healthy body;
circumspect candor, friends who are your equals;
relaxed dinner parties, a simple table,
nights not drunken, but free from anxieties;
a marriage bed not prudish, and yet modest;
plenty of sleep to make the dark hours short. Wish
to be what you are, and prefer nothing more.
Don't fear your last day, or hope for it either.

Translated from original text:
Vitam quae faciant beatiorem,
Iucundissime Martialis, haec sunt:
Res non parta labore, sed relicta;
Non ingratus ager, focus perennis;
Lis numquam, toga rara, mens quieta;
Vires ingenuae, salubre corpus;
Prudens simplicitas, pares amici;
Convictus facilis, sine arte mensa;
Nox non ebria, sed soluta curis;
Non tristis torus, et tamen pudicus;
Somnus, qui faciat breves tenebras:
Quod sis, esse velis nihilque malis;
Summum nec metuas diem nec optes. ~ Marcus Valerius Martialis

Death approaches, which is always impending like the stone over Tantalus: then comes superstition with which he who is imbued can never have peace of mind.
[Lat., Accedit etiam mors, quae quasi saxum Tantalo semper impendit: tum superstitio, qua qui est imbutus quietus esse numquam potest.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi)." Or, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? ~ George Berkeley

Est etiam, ubi profecto damnum praestet facere, quam lucrum - there are occasions when it is certainly better to lose than to gain ~ Plautus

Dominus et magister nī Jesus Chrs̄ dicendo, Penitentiam agite etc, omnē vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit.

(Our Lord and teacher, Jesus Christ, in saying, "repent," wanted the entire life life of a believer to be repentance.) ~ Martin Luther