The intensity of the favour of fortune is often balanced by the shortness of its duration, for fortune gets tired of carrying any one very long upon her shoulders.
[Recompénsase tal vez la brevedad de la duración con la intensión del favor. Cánsase la fortuna de llevar a uno a cuestas tan a la larga.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 38 (1647) [tr. Duff (1877)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:The quality of the pleasure makes sometimes amends for the shortness of the enjoyment. Fortune is weary to carry one and the same man always upon her shoulders.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favours by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders.
[tr. Jacobs (1892)]Luck always compensates her intensity by her brevity. Fortune wearies of carrying anyone long upon her shoulders.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]Sometimes Lady Luck compensates us, trading intensity for duration. She grows tired when she has to carry someone on her back for a long time.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]
