Hi! Welcome to "Dusty Phrases." You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.
This is an ancient Latin proverb (perhaps even pre-Latin) that remains very much in use today - though the English translation of the Latin original is now more well-known. (from wiki)
Audentes Fortuna Iuvat and the variations thereof is a common Latin proverb, typically translated as "Fortune favours the bold", "Fortune favours the brave" etc.. It is widely used as a slogan throughout Western civilization and history to emphasize concepts of courage and bravery, such as within various military organizations, and it is used up to the present on the coats of arms of individual families and clans.
Background
Fortune favours the bold is the translation of a Latin proverb, which exists in several forms with slightly different wording but effectively identical meaning, such as audentes Fortuna iuvat, audentes Fortuna adiuvat, Fortuna audaces iuvat, and audentis Fortuna iuvat. This last form is used by Turnus, an antagonist in the Aeneid by Virgil. Fortuna refers to luck or its personification, a Roman goddess.
Another version of the proverb, fortes Fortuna adiuvat, 'fortune favours the strong/brave', was used in Terence's 151 BC comedy play Phormio, line 203. Ovid further parodies the phrase at I.608 of his didactic work, Ars Amatoria, writing "audentem Forsque Venusque iuvat" or "Venus, like Fortune, favors the bold."
Pliny the Younger quotes his uncle, Pliny the Elder, as using the phrase Fortes fortuna iuvat when deciding to take his fleet and investigate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, in the hope of helping his friend Pomponianus: "'Fortes' inquit 'fortuna iuvat: Pomponianum pete.'" ("'Fortune', he said, 'favours the brave: head for Pomponianus.'") Pliny the Elder ultimately died during the expedition.
The Latin phrase Fortuna Eruditis Favet ("fortune favours the prepared mind") is also used. Louis Pasteur, the French microbiologist and chemist, made this remark: "Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés", meaning "In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind."
In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli remarked, "It is better to be adventurous than cautious," but extending the metaphor, "because fortune is a woman" and adding, "it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous."
The proverb may be a rewording of a line by Democritus that "boldness is the beginning of action, but fortune controls how it ends" (Ancient Greek: Τόλμα πρήξιος αρχή, τύχη δε τέλεος κυρίη, romanized: Tólma préxios arché, túche de téleos kuríe).
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