quotations about fate
In a curious sense, we all must admit that our fate is indeed a part of our existence. Whether we like it or not, we are beings who do not control all, or even most, of what goes on to make us who we are. So, on the one hand, if we appeal to fate as some kind of explanatory force we are grossly mistaken about how concepts explain; but if we deny that our fate is indeed an essential part of who we are, we are likewise grossly mistaken, and existentially beguiled.
MICHAEL GELVEN
Truth and Existence
Why should we try to shield people from fate? Isn't that always wrong? One is fated to be born the child of a certain father, and one can no more escape the consequences of his father's misdeeds than the doer himself can. Perhaps the pain and the shame come from the wish and the attempt to do so, more than from the fact itself. The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children. But the children are innocent of evil, and this visitation must be for their good, and will be, if they bear it willingly.
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
A Pair of Patient Lovers
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
Each fate is just, since each individual chooses it freely.
ROBERT APATOW
The Spiritual Art of Dialogue
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
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"
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
When we consider the incidents of former days, and perceive, while reviewing the long line of causes, how the most important events of our lives originated in the most trifling circumstances; how the beginning of our greatest happiness or greatest misery is to be attributed to a delay, to an accident, to a mistake; we learn a lesson of profound humility.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Fate's sentence written on the brow no hand can e'er efface.
BHARTRHARI
"The Praise of Destiny"
Every one is more or less master of his own fate.
AESOP
"The Traveller and Fortune" Aesop's Fables
So long as it fated, fate didn't care what it fated.
CHINA MIéVILLE
Kraken
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
Spin thy plain thread--'tis wanted soon or late;
No friend will seek thee out so sure as Fate.
CLARA MARCELLE FARRAR GREENE
"Thy Fate Is Seeking Thee"
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"
Fate always wins, for our own heart within us
Imperiously furthers its designs.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Wallenstein
Fate loves the fearless.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Voyage to Vinland"
Fate isn't some middle-aged man with a squint who won't recognize you if you change your clothes.
MEG ROSOFF
Just In Case
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
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
Perhaps fate isn't blind after all. Perhaps it's capable of fantasy, even compassion.
ELIE WIESEL
The Time of the Uprooted