“Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.”

Letter to John Page (15 July 1763); published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson (1905)
1760s
Context: The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavours of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey’s end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few things will disturb him at all: nothing will disturb him much.

Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 325-328; (Megara).
Tragedies

"On True Happiness", Pennsylvania Gazette (20 November 1735).
1730s

Le sage guérit de l'ambition par l'ambition même; il tend à de si grandes choses, qu'il ne peut se borner à ce qu'on appelle des trésors, des postes, la fortune et la faveur.
Aphorism 43
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

Source: The Lightness of Being – Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces (2008), Ch. 10, p. 128.

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Lines On The Transpontine Madness, p. xxi

Maxim 283
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Herodotus (trans. Robin Waterfield) The Histories Bk. 1, ch. 32, pp. 15-16.

Act XV.
La Celestina (1499)