I had much rather be adorned by beauty of character than by jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, character comes from within.
PlautusRead
I would rather be adorned by beauty of character than jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, while character comes from within.
Interpretation
Character is more valuable than material possessions.
This quote emphasizes the importance of inner character over outward appearances or material wealth. Plautus suggests that while jewels are beautiful and can be given by fortune, one's true beauty and value come from their character, which is developed from within and is the essence of a person's integrity and ethics.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, one could invoke this quote to highlight the importance of character over material possessions.
I had much rather be adorned by beauty of character than by jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, character comes from within.
Property is unstable, and youth perishes in a moment. Life itself is held in the grinning fangs of Death, Yet men delay to obtain release from the world. Alas, the conduct of mankind is surprising.
Things we do not expect, happen more frequently than we wish.
The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too, Who in this place set up a sun-dial, To cut and hack my days so wretchedly Into small portions.
If I can only keep my good name, I shall have riches enough.
Spice a dish with love and it pleases every palate.
And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
We're such a funky species. We're so violent, so greedy - this is how we roll. But what are we going to do about it? How do we move forward given who we are? Because situations don't come out of nothing. They come out of certain conditions.
She supposed that houses, after all - like the lives that were lived in them - were mostly made of space. It was the spaces, in fact, which counted, rather than the bricks.
If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.
A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree as we do namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions
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