I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said — Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. … Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
FORTUNE FAVORS THE BR—
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Colossus statue Ramses II in Memphis by Dominik Knippel, CC-by-sa 3.0
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i know matt damon’s agent from back in my hollywood days. I sent him an email three months ago saying “hey, if you want to have your client not become the poster boy for crypto failures, reach out! i have ideas for how he can message this!”
i did not hear back.
anyway, FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE BROWSER or whatever.
so “fortune favours the brave” was said by Pliny the Elder when he was investigating the eruption of Vesuvius. A better translation might be “YOLO.” Pliny died there, of course.
In fairness, his decision saved some people, and he was apparently the only casualty- died of either heat stroke or a heart attack.
(But also he was quoting a play. So it was basically an admiral yelling a movie quote. Yolo is roughly as dignified.)