How one carries on in the face of unavoidable catastrophe is a matter of temperament. In high school, as was custom, I had chosen a verse by Virgil to be my motto: “Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.” … Again and again I had met with situations from which rational deliberation found no means of escape; but then the unexpected intervened, and with it came salvation. I would not lose courage even now. I wanted to do everything an economist could do. I would not tire in saying what I knew to be true.
Ludwig von Mises, Notes and Recollections. [1940]
Life is a Random Draw 