“But to attribute men's acts of injustice and lust to fate, is to make ourselves good and the Gods bad.”

—  Sallustius

IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: To believe that human things, especially their material constitution, are ordered not only by celestial beings but by the celestial bodies is a reasonable and true belief. Reason shows that health and sickness, good fortune and bad fortune, arise according to our deserts from that source. But to attribute men's acts of injustice and lust to fate, is to make ourselves good and the Gods bad. Unless by chance a man meant by such a statement that in general all things are for the good of the world and for those who are in a natural state, but that bad education or weakness of nature changes the goods of Fate for the worse. Just as it happens that the Sun, which is good for all, may be injurious to persons with ophthalmia or fever.

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Sallustius 56
Roman philosopher and writer

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