at claros homines voluerunt se atque potentes, ut fundamento stabili fortuna maneret et placidam possent opulenti degere vitam' nequiquam, quoniam ad summum succedere honorem certantes iter infestum fecere viai, et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos invidia interdum contemptim in Tartara taetra, invidia quoniam, ceu fulmine, summa vaporant plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque; ut satius multo iam sit parere quietum quam regere imperio res velle et regna tenere.
Yet men desired to be famous and powerful, that their fortune might stand fast upon a firm foundation, and that being wealthy they might be able to pass a quiet life: all in vain, since in the struggle to climb to the summit of honour, they made their path full of danger; and even down from the summit, nevertheless, envy strikes them sometimes like a thunderbolt and casts them with scorn into loathly Tartarus; since envy, like the thunderbolt, usually scorches the summits and all those that are elevated above others; so that it is indeed much better to obey in peace than to desire to hold the world in fee and to rule kingdoms.
final_alignments\Lucretius_De_Rerum_Natura_Book5.json