"Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.” (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote)
Belief in Eternal Providence on the part of most of those who live by practices forbidden by laws or religion is neither absurd nor feigned nor the fruit of hypocrisy; it is true, real, and, such as it is, pious, for its source is unimpeachable. Whatever ways it takes, it is always Providence which acts, and those who worship it regardless of everything else can only be good souls though guilty of sinning.
Giacomo Casanova - History of my life (2, 1)
Where we go wrong, if you ask me, is in not entrusting ourselves enough to the Heaven and in expecting more from our own conduct of affairs than rightly belongs to us. That explains why our schemes so often go awry. Heaven is jealous of the scope which we allow to the rights of human wisdom to the prejudice of its own: the more we extend them the more Heaven cuts them back.
Michel de Montaigne - Essays, On physiognomy (III, 12)