quotations about fate
Great powers may be shaping the general turn of events, but human personalities still determine their own fate.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
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 is irrevocable, and invincible, and an unchangeable decree; a necessity of all things and actions, according to eternal appointment.
SENECA
Epistles
Fate is an inherent disposition in things mobile, by which Providence binds things to that which It has ordained.
BOETHIUS
De Consolatione IV
A man's character is his fate.
HERACLITUS
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
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
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
Fate never knocks at the wrong door, dear. You just may not be ready to answer.
SARALEE ROSENBERG
Fate and Ms. Fortune
Fate never knows when comedy ends and tragedy begins.
FRANK FRANKFORT MOORE
The Original Woman
It lies not in our power to love, or hate,
For will in us is over-rul'd by fate.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Hero and Leander
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
The harder thy fate, the softer thine heart.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Fate is what Heaven imparts.
DAGOBERT D. RUNES
The Dictionary of Philosophy
Thy fate is seeking thee,
Fear not! Fear not!
Nor hither, thither run, with puny strain
Of frenzied fingers on this closèd door,
Or that, to find her. Leave thy worse than vain
And feverish seeking; fret thy soul no more,
Nor vex the heavens with ineffectual cries;
Fate will adjust her perfect harmonies
And weave thee in. There is both time and space
For thy one little thread, it shall have place,
Though it be gold, or may be dull of hue,
Or silken smooth--whatever thou hast spun
Be sure in the great woof shall duly run.
CLARA MARCELLE FARRAR GREENE
"Thy Fate Is Seeking Thee"
Trying to alter fate is like trying to catch a bullet.
TONNERRE
The Future Affects the Past
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
Fate isn't sentient; it can't make decisions.
RICK CHIANTARETTO
Facade of Shadows
Fate, show thy force; ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be; and be this so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
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