Thus Miro Kotiga in the local version of the Venetian dialect. I do not remember the context any longer, though. I was so delighted by the proverb that I forgot what we were talking about. I kept asking Miro to repeat it over and over again, just to be sure I would not miss anything. Enchanted by my reaction, he kept repeating it, too. For some reason, I felt vindicated by the old proverb.

Addendum (October 9, 2016)

I just searched for this Venetian proverb on the World Wide Web, and in quotation marks so as to get it just as it is, but all I found was this piece of my own. And the web harbors nearly everything ever written by now. Besides, there must be quite a few million of people living in Venice and its erstwhile empire, but to no avail. Come to think of it, the proverb is very much against the spirit of this day and age. The very notion of being born to be someone is out of fashion for true. Being someone is up for grabs nowadays. Birth is nigh irrelevant. Instead, all one needs is a little bit of luck. Or so the fools of this world believe against all the evidence to the contrary.