quotations about fate
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Fate of Poverty in London
Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony.
GLEN COOK
The Black Company
Fate was some kind of an invisible beast lurking around them, teasing them. I could have killed you today if I wanted to, it was thinking. Or maybe tomorrow. Hee, hee. You'll never know. Just don't tempt me.
AUDREY PFITZENMAIER
Cheating Fate
The furnace which melts gold, also hardens clay. Before blaming thy fate, therefore, find whether thou art gold or clay.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
So long as it fated, fate didn't care what it fated.
CHINA MIéVILLE
Kraken
Free will appears unfettered, deliberate; it is boundlessly free, wandering, the spirit. But fate is a necessity; unless we believe that world history is a dream-error, the unspeakable sorrows of mankind fantasies, and that we ourselves are but the toys of our fantasies. Fate is the boundless force of opposition against free will. Free will without fate is just as unthinkable as spirit without reality, good without evil. Only antithesis creates the quality.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
"Fate and History"
Each fate is just, since each individual chooses it freely.
ROBERT APATOW
The Spiritual Art of Dialogue
What is Fate? Fate is the name given to the unfolding of all events, all worlds, realms, lives and powers, and the final end that awaits them, before they are regenerated at the hands of the Fate-weaver, who is the Old Veiled One.
ROBIN ARTISSON
The Flaming Circle
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.
CLARA MARCELLE FARRAR GREENE
"Thy Fate Is Seeking Thee"
I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.
RONALD REAGAN
First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981
Fate knows all about you, it knows your fears and your weaknesses and your confidences and strengths, and it can be ready for all of them when it decides that the time is right. It can move you like a pawn in a terrible game of chess, sacrifice you for the good of others, drop you from a building you should never have been inside, give you a disease that no one has ever heard of. Luck and chance are impartial. Fate is active. It picks on people. Almost as if it thinks about things too much ...
TIM LEBBON
Face
Every one is more or less master of his own fate.
AESOP
"The Traveller and Fortune" Aesop's Fables
Fate's sentence written on the brow no hand can e'er efface.
BHARTRHARI
"The Praise of Destiny"
Fate always wins, for our own heart within us
Imperiously furthers its designs.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Wallenstein
The working out of fate isn't just some large anonymous and separate natural system that surrounds you; ultimately, it is you, too. We're part of this world, inseparably; this means that all of your thoughts, dreams, urges, ideas, aren't just "yours"--they are the world's. They are the threads of fate. For all that, you are still the vehicle of their expression, and you bear responsibility for them.
ROBIN ARTISSON
The Flaming Circle
Fate in the life of a people, as in the life of an individual, signifies an existence of compulsion. A strange necessity binds the particulars into one whole. The individual, against his will, is subjected and subjugated to the national, fate-laden, reality.
JOSEPH DOV SOLOVEITCHIK
Fate and Destiny
Fate loves the fearless.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Voyage to Vinland"
Perhaps fate isn't blind after all. Perhaps it's capable of fantasy, even compassion.
ELIE WIESEL
The Time of the Uprooted
Fate remains a confrontation with that which cannot be explained in any other way. It is a part of the very meaning of fate that it is incomprehensible, but this curiously does not mean that all who accept fate are irrational. Whatever is experienced is contingent, and insofar as it is contingent it is not necessary; and not being necessary it is not a product of pure reason. But no one would say that what is contingent is irrational. It might be said to be nonrational, meaning it is not known necessarily; but the term "irrational" is usually reserved for that which directly contradicts itself, like an odd number wholly divisible by two, or a married bachelor. Fate is troubling and perhaps even nonrational, but it is certainly not irrational.
MICHAEL GELVEN
Truth and Existence
Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate's skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons.
DAVID RICHO
The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know