quotations about fate
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 never knows when comedy ends and tragedy begins.
FRANK FRANKFORT MOORE
The Original Woman
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
Fate, show thy force; ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be; and be this so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Natural History of Intellect
Great powers may be shaping the general turn of events, but human personalities still determine their own fate.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
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
How maliciously does fate always lurk in our path!
HEINRICH FRIEDRICH LUDWIG RELLSTAB
The Polish Lancer
Fate never knocks at the wrong door, dear. You just may not be ready to answer.
SARALEE ROSENBERG
Fate and Ms. Fortune
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
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 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
When fate is adverse, a blade of grass may become equal to a thunderbolt, and when fate is favorable, a thunderbolt may be like a tuft of grass.
CHEEVER MACKENZIE BROWN
The Triumph of the Goddess
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"
Fate is a primitive notion that makes no sense in a land of self-made men and women.
J. PETER EUBEN
"Pure Corruption"
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
The harder thy fate, the softer thine heart.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Fate is the all-round determinateness of a person's existence that necessarily predetermines all the events of that person's life; hence, life is merely the actualization (and fulfillment) of what was inherent from the very outset in the determinateness of the person's existence. From within himself, the person builds up his life (thinks, feels, acts) in accordance with particular goals, by actualizing various forms of that which has validity with respect to meaning and objects, upon which his life is directed: he acts in a particular way because he feels he ought to act that way, considers it proper, necessary, desirable to act that way, wants to act that way, etc. And yet, in reality, he merely actualizes the necessity inherent in his own fate, the determinateness of his own existence, his own countenance in being. Fate is the artistic transcription of the trace in being which is left by a life that is regulated from within itself by purpose; it is the artistic expression of the deposit in being laid down by a life that is understood or interpreted totally from within itself.
MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH BAKHTIN
Art and Answerability
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