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Dismal, its history and its modern applications

I hope your day is not dismal; however, all of us have a bad or unlucky day, or days, now and then. The history of the word dismal should give you a better idea as to where it came from and where it has been going.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

-Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher and writer (1533-1592)

Never find your delight in another person's misfortune.

-Publilius Syrus (about the first century B.C.)

We want our children to grow up to be such persons that ill-fortune, if they meet with it, will bring out strength in them, and that good fortune will not trip them up, but make them winners.

-Edward Sandford Martin

Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.

-Plutarch, Greek biographer and philosopher (A.D. 46?-120?)
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