quotations about fate
It may well be that a man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes, public and private: but the reckless flail of Fate, when it beats the rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; and the corn feels nothing of it and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill or the furrow.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Fate is irrevocable, and invincible, and an unchangeable decree; a necessity of all things and actions, according to eternal appointment.
SENECA
Epistles
How maliciously does fate always lurk in our path!
HEINRICH FRIEDRICH LUDWIG RELLSTAB
The Polish Lancer
Great powers may be shaping the general turn of events, but human personalities still determine their own fate.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say, Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. Intellect annuls Fate.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
A man's character is his fate.
HERACLITUS
Fate is an inherent disposition in things mobile, by which Providence binds things to that which It has ordained.
BOETHIUS
De Consolatione IV
Fate, show thy force; ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be; and be this so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
Fate is the most real thing that I see in my own and anyone else's life. It is not a fiction, but the cruellest of pincers pinching our lives.
ALEKSEI FEDOROVICH LOSEV
The Dialectics of Myth
Fate isn't sentient; it can't make decisions.
RICK CHIANTARETTO
Facade of Shadows
Fate never knocks at the wrong door, dear. You just may not be ready to answer.
SARALEE ROSENBERG
Fate and Ms. Fortune
Looking backward always presents an overdetermined depiction of fate; by this perspective we leave out of focus the possibilities of action which existed at the time.
REINHARD BENDIX
Force
Fate comes by our own agency. It belongs to our underlying spiritual values, because it is unattainable without experience of the world, and therefore differs from one person to the next.
STELIOS RAMPHOS
Fate and Ambiguity in Oedipus the King
Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man's hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man's worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
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
That which, to him whose will is not developed, is fate, is, to him who has a well-fashioned will, power.
JOHN CONOLLY
The Westminster Review, Jan. 1865
Nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Stellar Moments in Human History
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
All gamblers are losers.... Because, in the end, if you gamble, you're playing against fate, and fate always wins.
KATY LEDERER
Poker Face