Time & Perspective Quote by Terence

A bad beginning is a narrative trick Terence knew how to exploit: it turns awkwardness into propulsion. In comedy, the first impression is often a misunderstanding, a slight, a rivalry staged for laughs. Terence’s line nods to that dramatic engine while also slipping in a social truth his audience would recognize from Roman life, where status, patronage, and reputation made every encounter a negotiation.

The intent isn’t sentimental; it’s corrective. Terence is pushing back against the snap judgment, the reflex to treat conflict as destiny. “Many a time” carries the authority of observation, not moral lecturing. It implies a world where people routinely meet under pressure - competing interests, offended pride, misread motives - and where time can revise the story. Friendship, in this framing, is less a lightning bolt than a re-edit: the same facts rearranged after new information arrives.

The subtext is about social flexibility. Roman comedy is crowded with young lovers, strict fathers, clever slaves, and opportunistic brokers - roles defined by conflict. Terence suggests those roles aren’t prisons. A “bad beginning” can be an opening move in a longer game, one that tests character. If someone can survive the messy first act without locking into vengeance or contempt, the bond that follows is sturdier for having been stress-tested.

Context matters: Terence wrote in an imported Greek tradition adapted for Rome, where reconciliation is a prized ending because it restores order without pretending disorder never happened. The line flatters the audience’s hope that friction can be converted into intimacy - not by denying the clash, but by outlasting it.