Children of the Gods. Seneca, Epistles 5.44.1-2

Seneca tells Lucilius that unlike nature or fortune, philosophy does not play favorites. She does not care where you are from, how you mark yourself, or how others mark you. Her light is there for everyone, and so for us, too, no matter who or what we might be. To her, we are all the children of the gods.

Iterum tu mihi te pusillum facis et dicis malignius tecum egisse naturam prius, deinde fortunam, cum possis eximere te vulgo et ad felicitatem hominum maximam emergere. Si quid est aliud in philosophia boni, hoc est, quod stemma non inspicit; omnes, si ad originem primam revocantur, a dis sunt. Eques Romanus es, et ad hunc ordinem tua te perduxit industria; at mehercules multis quattuordecim clausa sunt, non omnes curia admittit, castra quoque quos ad laborem et periculum recipiant fastidiose legunt: bona mens omnibus patet, omnes ad hoc sumus nobiles. Nec reicit quemquam philosophia nec eligit: omnibus lucet.

Once again you are playing the bratty child for me, saying that nature done you wrong—that fortune also was too hard on you, despite the fact that you are able to remove yourself from the mob and attain the greatest happiness known to man. If there is anything good in philosophy, it is this: that she does not examine our origins; all of us, if we are summoned to our first beginning, come from the gods. You are a Roman knight, and your hard work has won you this rank. By Hercules! The fourteen seats (†) are shut to many, and our civil assemblies do not admit every applicant. The camp also chooses carefully those it will receive for military labor and danger. But anyone is free to have a good mind; in this we are all nobles. Philosophy neither refuses nor chooses anyone. She shines on all alike.

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(†) The Roman theater normally included fourteen seats designated for the knights (equites).