“A great fortune is a great slavery.”

— Seneca the Younger , book To Polybius

From Ad Polybium De Consolatione (Of Consolation, To Polybius), chap. VI, line 5
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Magna servitus est magna fortuna. / Magna servitus est magna servitus

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Seneca the Younger 225

Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BC

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Part II
A variant, "Behind every great fortune there is a great crime," has appeared as a quotation of Balzac; but it may have originated in a paraphrase in The Oil Barons: Men of Greed and Grandeur (1971) by Richard O'Connor, p. 47: "Balzac maintained that behind every great fortune there is a great crime." It also appears at the beginning of the novel "The Godfather," published two years earlier.
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