Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 4

...the more acceptable it is, the more honorable it has made it. Those things are not such as can turn the gaze of the Gods upon themselves, but are childish things and amusements of human levity. Behold a spectacle worthy to which a God, intent upon his own work, may look back: behold a match worthy of a God, a brave man matched against ill fortune, especially if he has also provoked it. I do not see, I say, what Jupiter could have on earth more beautiful, if he should wish to turn his mind to it, than to observe Cato, his party already broken more than once, standing nevertheless among