quotations about fate
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
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Art and Answerability
Fate and victory shift ... now this way, now that way -- like a line of unarmored men under a hail of enemy arrows.
DAN SIMMONS
Ilium
Dread discovers fate, but when the individual would put his confidence in fate, dread turns about and takes fate away; for fate is like dread, and dread is like possibility ... a witch's letter.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
The Concept of Dread
Fate isn't good or bad; it's the outcome of any choice you make. Simply put, fate is reaping what we have sown into our life. It's a universal principle of life that God places before every one.
JOHN KIM
The Roadmap to True Love
The controversy about the fate of humanity is central and inherent in our cultural life. An apprehensive watchfulness hangs in the air. This is a sign of the times. There is no end to the facts and statistics cited as evidence in support of the opinions about where we are heading. Optimism and pessimism, enthusiasm and alarm, all shades, all degrees. There are penetrating insights, and illuminating interpretations of institutions, behavior and events. Persuasive arguments and diagnosis, an abundant bibliography, and a sleepless irony that misses nothing. We watch ourselves closely.
MARTY GLASS
Yuga
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
One could not know where it was that one had taken the path one was upon but only that one was upon it.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Cities of the Plain
There are those who hold that there is a pattern to all that is said and done in this world, that no thing happens without reason nor out of time. As to that, I cannot speak, for I have seen too many threads cut short to believe it, but of a surety, I have seen too the weft of my fate shuttled on the loom. If there is a pattern, I do not think there is anyone among us who can stand at a great enough distance to discern it; yet I will not say that it is not so.
JACQUELINE CAREY
Kushiel's Dart
The realm of fate is self-limited, and from every part the decree has gone forth that the realm of freedom shall not be invaded. Fate is one unit, freedom another unit. And there is nothing in the one element of nature that is in the other. There is a line, on the one side of which all is fate and on the other freedom, and neither can trespass upon the territory of the other. Man may utilize both for his good and for the glory of God.
H. H. MOORE
Methodist Review
Struggling against your fate is like wrestling the wind.
FRANCINE RIVERS
Unveiled: Tamar
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
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
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
We must now be trained to do something we formerly assumed everyone would do simply by virtue of being human, being at one with an immemorial 'internal tradition': not identically, not correctly, but in one of the countless variations and moments, the 'give and take', whose dynamic interplay told the story and composed the spontaneous equilibrium of the commonweal, unplanned, unpremeditated, and 'unintentional'--just as the interaction of innumerable entities, elements and events composes the immense harmony, the perfection, of Nature: individually and collectively neither 'right' nor 'wrong', neither for better nor for worse, neither happy nor unhappy, neither 'correct' nor 'incorrect', neither 'progressive' nor 'reactionary', neither structured nor unstructured, neither wise nor foolish, but 'as it is', 'as things go', the Will of God, the fall of the dice, karma, Fate, the wheel of fortune, the Way. The Way that is beyond and prior to our judgments or discriminations or partisanships, the Way, the ancient Tao we once were, once saw, once recognized, once adored, as our own, our Self.
MARTY GLASS
Yuga
Fate is a manifestation of natural causes. That’s it. It’s not a conscious entity. It has no plan.
WALTER WYKES
The Fly
One who says "Fate is directing me to do this" is brainless, and the goddess of fortune abandons him.
VANKATESANANDA
The Concise Yogi Vasistha
The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we call Fate. If we are brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape. As we refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture, the antagonism takes a spiritual form. In the Hindu fables, Vishnu follows Maya through all her ascending changes, from insect and crawfish up to elephant; whatever form she took, he took the male form of that kind, until she became at last woman and goddess, and he a man and a god. The limitations refine as the soul purifies, but the ring of necessity is always perched at the top.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
People often think that their individual fate is everything. How wrong we are! It is enough to contemplate the invisible to know how much there is that is greater than fate. Yes, close your eyes, you will see what light renders invisible. You will see the little shadow in the shadow. You will see the signature from beyond. Listen to that fountain; don't you see every tiny drop of water sparkling in the dark? There is meaning.
HUGUES DE MONTALEMBERT
Invisible: A Memoir
An unrelenting, immutable fate is so irreconcilable with the liberty of human actions, with the nature of good and evil, of rewards and punishments, that if we admit of it, there is an end of all religion, of all virtuous endeavors, of all great and generous attempts: it is to no purpose to pray to God, or to trust in him, or to resist temptation, or to be diligent in our business, or prudent and circumspect in our actions; for what will be, will be: or if any means be to be used, that is no matter of our choice or care; but we shall do it as necessarily and mechanically as a watch moves and points to the hour of the day; for fate has, by the same necessity, determined the means and the end, and we can do no more nor less than fate has determined.
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL
The Millenial Harbinger Abridged
Men make their own history; but they make it under given conditions, and they become entangled thereby in a fate which is in part the result of other men having made their own history earlier.
REINHARD BENDIX
Force