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It is easy to spread the sails to propitious winds, and to cultivate in different ways a rich soil, and to give lustre to gold and ivory, when the very raw material itself shines.

— Marcus Manilius

Facile est ventis dare vela secundis,
Fecundumque solum varias agitare per artes,
Auroque atque ebori decus addere, cum rudis ipsa
Materies niteat.

Original text (Latin)

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More quotes by Marcus Manilius

We are always beginning to live, but are never living.

Man must be so weighed as though there were a God within him.

Every one is in a small way the image of God.

Experience is always sowing the seed of one thing after another.

No barriers, no masses of matter, however enormous, can withstand the powers of the mind. The remotest corners yield to them; all things succumb, the very heaven itself is laid open.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Marcus Manilius (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.