Literary notes about foresee (AI summary)
The term "foresee" is deployed in literature to suggest the act of anticipating the future or discerning outcomes that are not immediately evident. Authors use it to evoke both a sense of prescience and the inherent limitations of human foresight, as when fate or consequences are pondered with regret or wonder ([1], [2]). It appears in discussions ranging from personal misjudgments and the unexpected unfolding of destiny ([3], [4]) to broader commentaries on historical or societal events that defy prediction ([5], [6]). In this way, "foresee" operates as a subtle indicator of an individual's or society’s awareness—or lack thereof—regarding the uncertain contours of what lies ahead.
- “If you could foresee it, why did you come?”
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - How was it I did not foresee this, how was it I did not foresee this, how could I have been so stupid?
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - How the long stage would pass; how it was to affect their manners; what was to be their sort of intercourse, she could not foresee.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen - I foresee that the future is pregnant with events, and that there is much that needs explanation.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Who could foresee what the future would then have in store for the colonists?
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - Even five minutes before his death, they said afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
