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Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad.

— Publilius Syrus

Stultum facit fortuna, quem vult perdere.

Original text (Latin)

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Source, in full

Maxim 911; one of the most famous renditions of the ancient Greek proverb (which is anonymous and dates to the 5th century BCE or earlier). The provenance of the proverb and its English versions is at Wikiquote's Euripides page, under the heading "Misattributed".

Topics

Luck

More quotes by Publilius Syrus

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

Conversation is the image of the mind; as the man, so is his speech.

Pardon one offence and you encourage the commission of many.

The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted.

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.

All Publilius Syrus quotes →

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O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
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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: Publilius Syrus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.