a refuge and shelter in the world?

178. Macrobius: on the innocents slain by Herod.

179. When Augustus learnt that Herod's own son was amongst the infants under
two years of age, whom he had caused to be slain, he said that it was better
to be Herod's pig than his son. Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 4.

180. The great and the humble have the same misfortunes, the same griefs,
the same passions; but the one is at the top of the wheel, and the other
near the centre, and so less disturbed by the same revolutions.

181. We are so unfortunate that we can only take pleasure in a thing on
condition of being annoyed if it turn out ill, as a thousand things can do,
and do every hour. He who should find the secret of rejoicing in the good,
without troubling himself with its contrary evil, would have hit the mark.
It is perpetual motion.

182. Those who have always good hope in the midst of misfortunes, and who
are delighted with good luck, are suspected of being very pleased with the
ill success of the affair, if they are not equally distressed by bad luck;
and they are overjoyed to find these pretexts of hope, in order to show that
they are concerned and to conceal by the joy which they feign to feel that
which they have at seeing the failure of the matter.