“There is no treasure equal to contentment and no virtue equal to fortitude.”

Of Adversity
Essays (1625)
Context: The virtue of prosperity, is temperance; the virtue of adversity, is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job, than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

Les mortels sont égaux; ce n'est pas la naissance,
C'est la seule vertu qui fait la différence.
Ériphyle Act II, scene I (1732); these lines were also later used in Voltaire's Mahomet, Act I, scene IV (1741)
Variant translations:
Men are equal; it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes them differ.
As quoted in Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866) edited by Craufurd Tait Ramage, p. 363 https://books.google.com/books?id=nDErAAAAYAAJ
Men are equal; it is not birth
But virtue that makes the difference
Citas

Tulsidas in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 37

Speech in the House of Commons (October 22, 1945) "Demobilisation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/oct/22/demobilisation#column_1703
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

No. 191
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Source: The Look of Maps (1952), p. 15

Introduction (p. xii)
Broca's Brain (1979)