Max B. on Fate:

"Often I have presentiments of evil; but, never having had one of them fulfilled, I am beginning to ignore them. I find that I have always walked straight, serenely imprescient, into whatever trap Fate has laid for me."

On emotion:

"In every one of us the deepest emotions are constantly caused by some absurdly trivial thing, or by nothing at all. Conversely, the great things in our lives--the true occasions for wrath, anguish, rapture, what not--very often leave us quite calm. We cannot depend on any right adjustment of emotion to circumstance. That is on of many reasons which prevent the philosopher from taking himself and his fellow-beings quite so seriously as he would wish."