FATE QUOTES VII

quotations about fate

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


Thus we trace Fate, in matter, mind, and mortals--in race, in retardations of strata, and in thought and character as well. It is everywhere bound or limitation. But Fate has its lord; limitation its limits; is different seen from above and from below; from within and from without. For, though Fate is immense, so is power, which is the other fact in the dual world, immense. If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and antagonizes Fate. We must respect Fate as natural history, but there is more than natural history. For who and what is this criticism that pries into the matter? Man is not order of nature, sack and sack, belly and members, link in a chain, nor any ignominous baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a dragging together of the poles of the Universe.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The Conduct of Life


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


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"


One who says "Fate is directing me to do this" is brainless, and the goddess of fortune abandons him.

VANKATESANANDA

The Concise Yogi Vasistha


Fate, or "inevitability", has to do with events in history that are beyond the control of any circle of group of men having three characteristics: (1) compact enough to be identifiable, (2) powerful enough to decide with consequence, and (3) in a position to foresee these consequences and so to be held accountable for them. Events, according to this conception, are the summary and unintended results of innumerable decisions of innumerable men. Each of their decisions is minute in consequence and subject to concellation or reinforcement by other such decisions. There is no link between any one man's intention and the summary result of the innumerable decisions. Events are beyond human decisions: History is made behind men's backs.

CHARLES WRIGHT MILLS

The Sociological Imagination


The best of men cannot suspend their fate:
The good die early, and the bad die late.

DANIEL DEFOE

Character of the late Dr. S. Annesley


Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent ...
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

JOHN WEBSTER

The White Devil


In the beginning, there were three goddesses, the Fates: one to spin the thread of life, one to measure it, one to cut it. Not only mortals, but even the gods were subject to the decrees of Fate. But the ancient Greeks had a saying that the Muses--and only the Muses--can change the weave of Fate. This is a remarkable psychological idea, and a redemptive one--for it suggests that one is never trapped by one's fate, never permanently imprisoned in the pain of one's childhood, never completely bound by the limitations of one's present circumstance. But it is important to note that what brings redemption and freedom from the heavy hand of Fate is not the frenetic activity of data-gathering, and not a heroic egotistic attitude that tries to break down all barriers, all limitations, trampling over one's history in the determination to dictate all the terms of one's life. No: what brings real change, real redemption from entrapment in the deadening sense of fatalism that stops all creativity, are the Muses. These beautiful daughters of Mnemosyne are able to take the most horrific and anguished experiences of our lives and work their artistry upon them. The Muses enable us to make poetry from pain, lyric from loneliness, literature from personal tragedy. This is what releases us from the sense of meaninglessness that keeps us stuck in pain.

MARY LYNN KITTELSON

The Soul of Popular Culture


Trying to alter fate is like trying to catch a bullet.

TONNERRE

The Future Affects the Past


The Book of Fate isn't already written. It's written every day.

BRAD MELTZER

The Book of Fate


The furnace which melts gold, also hardens clay. Before blaming thy fate, therefore, find whether thou art gold or clay.

IVAN PANIN

Thoughts


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


How maliciously does fate always lurk in our path!

HEINRICH FRIEDRICH LUDWIG RELLSTAB

The Polish Lancer


Fate isn't sentient; it can't make decisions.

RICK CHIANTARETTO

Facade of Shadows


For man is man and master of his fate.

ALFRED

LORD TENNYSON, Idylls of the King


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 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


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


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