Plato, Protagoras

[344c] and to be a good man is, as you say, Pittacus, impossible, superhuman: God alone can have this privilege—

“For that man cannot help but be bad
Whom irresistible mischance has overthrown.
”

Simonides 37.1.14-16

Now who is it that an irresistible mischance overthrows in the command of a ship? Clearly not the ordinary man, for he may be overcome at any time; just as you cannot knock over one who is lying down, but one who is standing; you might knock over a standing man so as to make him lie down,