When I chanced the other day upon a poem by the 2nd-century AD Roman poet

Juvenal and which starts with the famous "mens sana in corpore sano," it clicked

instantly. I wonder if Bruce Lee had read this before he summed up "Do not pray

for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."

The following was copied shamelessly from Wikipedia:

        > orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.

        > fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem,

        > qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat

        > naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores,

        > nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil et potiores

        > Herculis aerumnas credat saevosque labores

        > et venere et cenis et pluma Sardanapalli.

        > monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe

        > tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae.

        You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.

        Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death,

        and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts

        that can endure any kind of toil,

        that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks

        the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than

        the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.

        What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;

        For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

Note that tranqulity ("peace" seems a poor translation of "tranqullae") through

virtue was also the belief expressed by the Stoic Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius,

of the same era.

Older people pay more attention to health, I suspect, because we fear death. Yet

the poem advocates health for its own sake and belittles longevity as "the least

of Nature's gifts," which does make sense as, given the choice, one would prefer

good life quality to prolonged suffering. But maybe I'm assuming too much as

some would argue for living for the sake of living.

Below I try to translate the English version into Chinese, but I might need to

know the Latin version better to be more accurate.