quotations about fate
Fate is irrevocable, and invincible, and an unchangeable decree; a necessity of all things and actions, according to eternal appointment.
SENECA
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Epistles
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
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
When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
Great powers may be shaping the general turn of events, but human personalities still determine their own fate.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
The harder thy fate, the softer thine heart.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
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
Trying to alter fate is like trying to catch a bullet.
TONNERRE
The Future Affects the Past
Fate is like our guardian angel who watches over us when we tend to stray off of our Divine Path and Purpose. It warns us and gives us a friendly and warm nudge of love to steer us back on track and in the right direction.
MARY BOWERS
Before the Last Teardrop Falls
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
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
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
Fate is what Heaven imparts.
DAGOBERT D. RUNES
The Dictionary of Philosophy
A man's character is his fate.
HERACLITUS
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
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 a primitive notion that makes no sense in a land of self-made men and women.
J. PETER EUBEN
"Pure Corruption"
For man is man and master of his fate.
ALFRED
LORD TENNYSON, Idylls of the King
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
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