by trifles, a man must be well off;
for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt.

SECTION 3. Care should be taken not to build the happiness of life
upon a _broad foundation_--not to require a great many things in order
to be happy. For happiness on such a foundation is the most easily
undermined; it offers many more opportunities for accidents; and
accidents are always happening. The architecture of happiness follows
a plan in this respect just the opposite of that adopted in every
other case, where the broadest foundation offers the greatest
security. Accordingly, to reduce your claims to the lowest possible
degree, in comparison with your means,--of whatever kind these may
be--is the surest way of avoiding extreme misfortune.

To make extensive preparations for life--no matter what form they
may take--is one of the greatest and commonest of follies. Such
preparations presuppose, in the first place, a long life, the full and
complete term of years appointed to man--and how few reach it! and
even if it be reached, it is still too short for all the plans that
have been made; for to carry them out requites more time than was
thought necessary at the beginning. And then how many mischances and
obstacles stand in the way! how seldom the goal is ever reached in
human affairs!

And lastly, even though the goal should be reached, the changes which
Time works in us have been left out of the reckoning: we forget that
the capacity whether for achievement or for enjoyment does not last a
whole lifetime. So we often toil for things which are no longer suited
to us when we attain them; and again, the years we spend in preparing
for some work, unconsciously rob us of the power for carrying it out.

How often it happens that a man is unable to enjoy the wealth which he
acquired at so much trouble and risk, and that the fruits of his
labor are reserved for others; or that he is incapable of filling the
position which he has won after so many years of toil and struggle.
Fortune has come too late for him; or, contrarily, he has come too
late for fortune,--when, for instance, he wants to achieve great
things, say, in art or literature: the popular taste has changed, it
may be; a new generation has grown up, which takes no interest in his
work; others have gone a shorter way and got the start of him. These
are the facts of life which Horace must have had in view, when he
lamented the uselessness of all advice:--

_quid eterni