Seneca · On the lesson to be drawn from the burning of Lyons

Letters 91.4

Therefore, nothing ought to be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider, not what is wont to happen, but what can happen. For what is there in existence that Fortune, when she has so willed, does not drag down from the very height of its prosperity? And what is there that she does not the more violently assail the more brilliantly it shines? What is laborious or difficult for her?

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 91.4, translated by Richard Mott Gummere