Patton commenting on being removed from command: My final thought on the matter is that I am destined to achieve some great thing—what I...

Beloved in God: I know and must confess with the prophet Jeremiah that the way of the human being does not lie in his own power; nor does it lie in the power of man to govern his own steps [Jer. 10:23]. The human heart undertakes also to do something for itself, but God directs and controls according to his pleasure. For I had always intended to remain alone in my barrel and cave and not at all to creep out into the light, not that I feared the light, but in order that I migh

Do but keep in remembrance your general principles: “What is mine? What is not mine? What has been given me? What does God will that I do now, what does He not will?” a little while ago it was His will for you to be at leisure, to converse with yourself, to write about these things, to read, to listen, to prepare yourself; you had time sufficient for that. Now God says to you, “Come at length to the contest, show us what you have learned, how you have trained yourself. How lo

This is the way also with the more cautious among travelers. A man has heard that the road which he is taking is infested with robbers; he does not venture to set forth alone, but he waits for a company, either that of an ambassador, or of a quaestor, or of a proconsul, and when he has attached himself to them he travels along the road in safety. So in this world the wise man acts. Says he to himself: “There are many robber-bands, tyrants, storms, difficulties, losses of what

Does God so neglect His own creatures, His servants, His witnesses, whom alone He uses as examples to the uninstructed, to prove that He both is, and governs the universe well, and does not neglect the affairs of men, and that no evil befalls a good man either in life or in death? – Yes, but what if He does not provide food? – Why, what else but that as a good general He has sounded the recall? I obey, I follow, lauding my commander, and singing hymns of praise about His deed

Epictetus, "But we act very much as though we were on a voyage. What is possible for me? To select the helmsman, the sailors, the day, the moment. Then a storm comes down upon us. Very well, what further concern have I? For my part has been fulfilled. The business belongs to someone else, that is, the helmsman. But, more than that, the ship goes down. What, then, have I to do? What I can; that is the only thing I do; I drown without fear, neither shrieking nor crying out agai