quotations about fate
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
How maliciously does fate always lurk in our path!
HEINRICH FRIEDRICH LUDWIG RELLSTAB
The Polish Lancer
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
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"
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 is an inherent disposition in things mobile, by which Providence binds things to that which It has ordained.
BOETHIUS
De Consolatione IV
Fate is irrevocable, and invincible, and an unchangeable decree; a necessity of all things and actions, according to eternal appointment.
SENECA
Epistles
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 harder thy fate, the softer thine heart.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
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"
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
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
Fate never knows when comedy ends and tragedy begins.
FRANK FRANKFORT MOORE
The Original Woman
Great powers may be shaping the general turn of events, but human personalities still determine their own fate.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
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
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
They may well fear fate who have any infirmity of habit or aim: but he who rests on what is has a destiny beyond destiny, and can make mouths of fortune.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
Architects of Fate
Fate is a primitive notion that makes no sense in a land of self-made men and women.
J. PETER EUBEN
"Pure Corruption"
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 isn't sentient; it can't make decisions.
RICK CHIANTARETTO
Facade of Shadows