quotations about fate
Fate, show thy force; ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be; and be this so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
Man makes his fate according to his mind:
The weak, low spirit Fortune makes her slave:
But she's a drudge when hector'd by the brave.
If Fate weave common thread, I'll change the doom,
And with new purple weave a nobler loom.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Conquest of Granada
Fate is irrevocable, and invincible, and an unchangeable decree; a necessity of all things and actions, according to eternal appointment.
SENECA
Epistles
If you are blessed with great fortunes ... you may love your fate. But your fate never guarantees the security of those great fortunes. As soon as you realize your helplessness at the mercy of your fate, you are again in despair. Thus the hatred of fate can be generated not only by misfortunes, but also by great fortunes. Your hatred of fate is at the same time your hatred of your self. You hate your self for being so helpless under the crushing power of fate.
T. K. SEUNG
"The Dionysian Mystery"
What threatens him, therefore, as his fate, is just his own life made by his deed into a stranger and an enemy.
EDWARD CAIRD
Hegel
I think sometimes fate cuts you a break. Like it says, okay, you've had enough of that crap, so it's time you fell into something nice. See what you make out of it.
J. D. ROBB
Interlude in Death
The harder thy fate, the softer thine heart.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Fate never knocks at the wrong door, dear. You just may not be ready to answer.
SARALEE ROSENBERG
Fate and Ms. Fortune
No experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and laid alongside another thread and is held and supported by a hundred others.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
letter, Letters to a Young Poet, Apr. 23, 1903
All we can control in life is our own choices, how we choose to live and deal with what life has to offer. Everything else is fate.
MARK PURYEAR
The Nature of Asatru
Fate isn't moral. Most people have the idea that they have the possibility to choose and have a free will. Ironically enough, these people only have the illusion that they can choose; in fact their future is already existing in their past.
ERIC DE VRIES
Hedge-Rider
For man is man and master of his fate.
ALFRED
LORD TENNYSON, Idylls of the King
Consciousness is, in fact, what makes us human. It is not thinking that sets us apart from most other animals as many believe but our ability to think about ourselves. Most animals are not self-conscious, and that distinction robs them of the volition and purpose that allow us to determine our own fate--and to alter it as we go along. It is consciousness that makes will what it is--a capacity through which we make choices rather than merely responding to biological impulses. With consciousness we have memories that help us make plans and control the future; we can produce the most radical of discontinuities.
MICHAEL LEWIS
Altering Fate
Fate isn't black or white, right or left. People aren't just plopped down and made to follow one route in life on the whims of the gods. If that were true, we'd have to say Hitler was only a victim of his own destiny, and therefore blameless ... We have decisions to make, actions to take, good ones and bad ones that make up the texture of our lives. Everything we do or don't do matters ... Everything counts at the end of the day ... we have a pattern to make. We have to see it through, try to find a way to complete it.
NORA ROBERTS
Three Fates
Others will gape t' anticipate
The cabinet designs of fate;
Apply to wizards to foresee
What shall, and what shall never be.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
I presume that it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our fate with as good grace as possible.
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
A Princess of Mars
Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent ...
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.
JOHN WEBSTER
The White Devil
Fate is not itself our metaphysical fate, but an opening choice; we can ... turn the account into freedom.
STANLEY CAVELL
Contesting Tears
Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed
Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven.
EURIPIDES
Fragment
When I seek out the sources of my thoughts, I find they had their beginning in fragile Chance; were born of little moments that shine for me curiously in the past. Slight the impulse that made me take this turning at the crossroads, trivial and fortuitous the meeting, and light as gossamer the thread that first knit me to my friend. These are full of wonder; more mysterious are the moments that must have brushed me with their wings and passed me by: when Fate beckoned and I did not see it, when new Life trembled for a second on the threshold; but the word was not spoken, the hand was not held out, and the Might-have-been shivered and vanished, dim as a into the waste realms of non-existence.
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia