Note 157 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Between whiles we believe ourselves masters of our acts at any given moment. But when we look back along our life's path and fix our eyes chiefly upon our unfortunate steps and their consequences, often we cannot understand how we came to do this and leave that undone, and it seems as if some power outside ourselves had directed our steps. Shakespeare says;
"Fate show thy force: ourselves we do not owe; What is decreed must be, and be this so!"
Schopenhauer, "Ueber die anscheinende Absichtlichkeit im Schicksale des Einzelnen. Parerga und Paralipomena."