Comrades, we’re well acquainted with evils, then and now.
Worse than this you have suffered. God will end all this too.[O socii — neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum —
O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem.]Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 1, l. 198ff (1.198-199) [Aeneas] (29-19 BC) [tr. Day Lewis (1952)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
Deare friends (for we have many sorrows past)
You worse have felt, God these will end at last.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]
Endure, and conquer! Jove will soon dispose
To future good our past and present woes.
[tr. Dryden (1697)]
O companions, who have sustained severer ills than these, (for we are not strangers to former days of adversity,) to these, too, God will grant a termination.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]
Comrades and friends! for ours is strength
Has brooked the test of woes;
O worse-scarred hearts! these wounds at length
The Gods will heal, like those.
[tr. Conington (1866)]
O friends, who greater sufferings still have borne,
(for not unknown to us are former griefs,)
And end also to these the deity
Will give.
[tr. Cranch (1872), l. 251ff]
O comrades, for not now nor aforetime are we ignorant of ill, O tried by heavier fortunes, unto this last likewise will God appoint an end.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]
O fellows, we are used ere now by evil ways to wend;
O ye who erst bore heavier loads, this too the Gods shall end.
[tr. Morris (1900)]
Comrades! of ills not ignorant; far more
Than these ye suffered, and to these as well
Will Jove give ending, as he gave before.
[tr. Taylor (1907), st. 27 / l. 235ff]
Companions mine, we have not failed to feel
calamity till now. O, ye have borne
far heavier sorrow: Jove will make an end
also of this.
[tr. Williams (1910)]
O comrades -- for ere this we have not been ignorant of evils -- O ye who have borne a heavier lot, to this, too, God will grant an end!
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]
O comrades, we have been through evil
Together before this; we have been through worse
[...] This, too, the god will end.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]
O comrades -- surely we're not ignorant
of earlier disasters, we who have suffered
things heaver than this -- our god will give
an end to this as well.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971), l. 276ff]
Friends and companions,
Have we not known hard hours before this?
My men, who have endured still greater dangers,
God will grant us an end to these as well.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981), l. 270ff]
My friends, this is not the first trouble we have known. We have suffered worse before, and this too will pass. God will see to it.
[tr. West (1990)]
O friends (well, we were not unknown to trouble before)
O you who’ve endured worse, the god will grant an end to this too.
[tr. Kline (2002)]
Trojans! This is not our first taste of trouble.
You have suffered worse than this, my friends,
And God will grant an end to this also.
[tr. Lombardo (2005), l. 234ff]
My comrades, hardly strangers to pain before now,
we all have weathered worse. Some god will grant us
an end to this as well.
[tr. Fagles (2006)]
My friends: we're no strangers to misfortune. You've suffered worse; some god will end this too.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]
Quotations about:
morale
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
To array a man’s will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Norwood; or, Village Life in New England, Vol. 1, ch. 6 (1867)
(Source)
Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) English prelate, Catholic Cardinal, theologian
(Attributed)
Also attributed to Golda Meir.
Nay, number (itself) in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for (as Virgil saith) It never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral, No. 29 “Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates” (1612)
(Source)
The wolf reference is actually a common Latin proverb: "Non curat numerum lupus [The wolf doesn't care about the number]," or its longer form "Lupus non curat numerum ovium" [The wolf does not care about the number of sheep.].
Though Bacon explicitly notes the phrase in Virgil's Eclogues, the Latin saying is often attributed to Bacon.
Morale is the greatest single factor in successful war.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Crusade in Europe (1948)
Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.
Richard Branson (b. 1950) English business magnate, investor, philanthropist
Tweet (27 Mar 2014)
(Source)
A strategist should think in terms of paralyzing, not of killing. Even on the lower plane of warfare, a man killed is merely one man less, whereas a man unnerved is a highly infectious carrier of fear, capable of spreading an epidemic of panic. … The sword drops from a paralyzed hand.
B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) English soldier, military historian (Basil Henry Liddell Hart)
Strategy, ch. 15 (1954)
