But I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.
Interpretation
Success can breed jealousy and scrutiny, especially from higher powers or society.
This quote reflects the idea that great successes come with their own set of challenges, particularly in the form of jealousy. The speaker, likely contemplating the nature of success, suggests that such achievements can draw the envy of others, including the gods, resulting in complications and pressures that may not be immediately apparent to those who experience them.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the pitfalls of success.
The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.
My advice to girls: first, don't smoke - to excess; second, don't drink - to excess; third, don't marry - to excess.
Christ said, "Resist not evil", and we do not understand it until we discover that it is not only moral but actually the best policy, for anger is loss of energy to the man who displays it. You should not allow your minds to come into those brain-combinations of anger and hatred.
Take the dead from the dead, the old proverb said; only a corpse may speak true prophecy.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
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