“And above all, we must feel and act as if an endless continuation of our earthly life awaited us after death; and if it be that nothingness is the fate that awaits us we must not, in the words of Obermann, so act that it shall be a just fate.”

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not,” said the witch, “or die of despair.”

“Present action, though futile, is preferable to passive acceptance of such a fate as awaits us.”

“We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us.”

“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”

“All sense of reality had gone out of her life; she had abandoned herself to fate, and awaited the consequences with indifference.”

“There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can…. Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.”

“Let us ease the Roman people of their continual care, who think it long to await the death of an old man.”
Liberemus diuturna cura populum Romanum, quando mortem senis exspectare longum censent. (Latin, not original language)

“We have to go along a road covered with blood. We have no other alternative. For us it is a matter of life or death, a matter of living or existing. We have to be ready to face the challenges that await us.”

“Happiness does not await us all. One needn’t be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money. That is why we must hang on to one another.”