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Adverse fortune seldom spares men of the noblest virtues. No one can with safety expose himself often to dangers. The man who has often escaped is at last caught.

— Seneca the Younger

Iniqua raro maximis virtutibus
Fortuna parcit. Nemo se tuto diu
Periculis offerre tam crebris potest,
Quem sæpe transit casus, aliquando invenit.

Original text (Latin)

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Luck

More quotes by Seneca the Younger

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

Prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law.

Fortune is less severe against those of lesser degree, and God strikes what is weak with less power.

Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.

All Seneca the Younger quotes →

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Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Seneca the Younger (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.