So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.
Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.
Oh God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea.
The weakness of modern tragedy[is that] transgression against the social code is made to bring destruction, as though the social code worked our irrevocable fate.
According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.
I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe. What is decreed must be; and be this so.
If the war is lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be better to destroy things ourselves because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation [Russia]. Besides, those who remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have been killed.