“There are never any occasions when you need think yourself safe because you wield the weapons of Fortune; fight with your own! Fortune does not furnish arms against herself; hence men equipped against their foes are unarmed against Fortune herself.”
As quoted in Epistulae morales ad Lucilium by Seneca, Epistle CXIII (trans. R. M. Gummere)
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Posidonius5
ancient greek philosopher -135–-51 BCRelated quotes
Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXIV: On Virtue as a Refuge From Worldly Distractions
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician
On Lord Castlereagh's use of bribery to pass the Irish Act of Union. Quarterly Review, 111, 1862, p. 204
1860s
Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: Following the War of 1812, the young United States had no further need for Indian allies against the British, and as a result the fortunes of the Indians declined rapidly. By 1848, twelve new states had been carved out of the Indian's lands, two major and minor Indian wars had been fought, and group after group of Indians had been herded westward, on forced marches, across the Mississippi River.
“Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.”
Suzanne Curchod (1737–1794) French-Swiss salonist and writer
Reported in "The Viking Book of Aphorisms: A Personal Selection" By Wystan Hugh Auden, Louis Kronenberger (1981)
“It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us.”
Victor Hugo book The Man Who Laughs
The Man Who Laughs (1869)