Key Arguments

• He advances a normative preference for impetuosity over caution.
• He justifies this through a gendered metaphor: Fortune must be ‘beaten and roughly handled’ and is mastered by the bold.
• He adds an age-based observation: Fortune favors the young because they are fiercer and more audacious.

Source Quotes

To be brief, I say that since Fortune changes and men stand fixed in their old ways, they are prosperous so long as there is congruity between them, and the reverse when there is not. Of this, however, I am well persuaded, that it is better to be impetuous than cautious. For Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches.

Of this, however, I am well persuaded, that it is better to be impetuous than cautious. For Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches. And always, like a woman, she favours the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity.

For Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches. And always, like a woman, she favours the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity.

Key Concepts

• it is better to be impetuous than cautious.
• For Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches.
• she favours the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity.

Context

Chapter 25, lines 1622-1684; concluding prescriptive claim privileging impetuosity, with metaphorical rationale.