Letters 8.4

Such a career leads us into precipitous ways, and life on such heights ends in a fall. Moreover, we cannot even stand up against prosperity when she begins to drive us to leeward; nor can we go down, either, ‘with the ship at least on her course,’ or once for all; Fortune does not capsize us,—she plunges our bows under and dashes us on the rocks.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 8.4, translated by Richard Mott Gummere