In any expedition there are bound to be unforeseen difficulties of every kind, and it is often absolutely impossible for the outside public to say whether a failure is due to some lack of forethought on the part of those engaged in the expedition, or to causes absolutely beyond human control. There is not and cannot be certainty in an affair of this kind—probably there cannot be certainty in any affair, but above all in what by its very nature is so hazardous. The slack or rash man is more likely to fail than the man of forethought; but the hand of the Lord may be heavy upon the wise no less than upon the foolish.

— Theodore Roosevelt, journaling before his famous expedition on the River of Doubt, 1913 (via)