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.
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)
The United States does not have a choice as to whether or not is will or will not play a great part in the world. Fate has made that choice for us. The only question is whether we will play the part well or badly.
Even thou who mournst the daisy's fate, That fate is thine--no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom!
And last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in man, and always striking soon or late when justice is not done. What is useful will last, what is hurtful will sink.
The worst death for anyone is to lose the center of his being, the thing he really is. Retirement is the filthiest word in the language. Whether by choice or by fate, to retire from what you do - and makes you what you are - is to back up into the grave.