"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work
to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know
it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.... I am a link in a chain,
a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall
do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth
in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and
serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever
I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve
Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow
may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of
some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may
prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away
my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make
my spirits sink, hide the future from me --still He knows what He is about."
John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions
"It is crudely general to suggest collective responsibility for the German populace. It is, however, fair to suggest that those who continued to defend the idea of Germanhood publicly as the war went on—when this had become synonymous with barbarity—were in fact renouncing their humanity for the sake of individual survival and peace of mind."
Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music