quotations about fate
The idea of fate has always had a special appeal in religious, mystical, and philosophical thinking. There are several compelling reasons for this fascination, the most obvious of which is that human life is short and human efforts are frequently futile. As a species endowed with the capacity for thought, people want to find some kind of explanation, purpose, or meaning for their lives. The idea that a superior force--fate--shapes the course of their lives and determines what becomes of them helps people to interpret their experiences and adjust themselves to their circumstances. Arising out of a state of anxiety and bewilderment, it thus fulfills a basic human need for order and harmony.
DALYA COHEN-MOR
introduction, A Matter of Fate
Fate is irrevocable, and invincible, and an unchangeable decree; a necessity of all things and actions, according to eternal appointment.
SENECA
Epistles
Others will gape t' anticipate
The cabinet designs of fate;
Apply to wizards to foresee
What shall, and what shall never be.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
If anyone does not help himself, fate never can help him.
HUANZHANG CHEN
The Economic Principles of Confucius
How maliciously does fate always lurk in our path!
HEINRICH FRIEDRICH LUDWIG RELLSTAB
The Polish Lancer
In the beginning, there were three goddesses, the Fates: one to spin the thread of life, one to measure it, one to cut it. Not only mortals, but even the gods were subject to the decrees of Fate. But the ancient Greeks had a saying that the Muses--and only the Muses--can change the weave of Fate. This is a remarkable psychological idea, and a redemptive one--for it suggests that one is never trapped by one's fate, never permanently imprisoned in the pain of one's childhood, never completely bound by the limitations of one's present circumstance. But it is important to note that what brings redemption and freedom from the heavy hand of Fate is not the frenetic activity of data-gathering, and not a heroic egotistic attitude that tries to break down all barriers, all limitations, trampling over one's history in the determination to dictate all the terms of one's life. No: what brings real change, real redemption from entrapment in the deadening sense of fatalism that stops all creativity, are the Muses. These beautiful daughters of Mnemosyne are able to take the most horrific and anguished experiences of our lives and work their artistry upon them. The Muses enable us to make poetry from pain, lyric from loneliness, literature from personal tragedy. This is what releases us from the sense of meaninglessness that keeps us stuck in pain.
MARY LYNN KITTELSON
The Soul of Popular Culture
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
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
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
One who says "Fate is directing me to do this" is brainless, and the goddess of fortune abandons him.
VANKATESANANDA
The Concise Yogi Vasistha
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
Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man's hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man's worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
Fate is not itself our metaphysical fate, but an opening choice; we can ... turn the account into freedom.
STANLEY CAVELL
Contesting Tears
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
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
Great powers may be shaping the general turn of events, but human personalities still determine their own fate.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
Believing in fate has probably always arisen in part because of the delights and terrors of storytelling. We have to realize--to learn--that in life we are not the readers but the authors of our own narratives.
MARGARET VISSER
Beyond Fate
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
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