quotations about fate
If fate be not, then what can we foresee?
And how can we avoid it if it be?
If by free will in our own paths we move,
How are we bounded by decrees of above?
Whether we drive, or whether we are driven,
If ill, 'tis ours; if good, the act of heaven.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Tempest
So long as it fated, fate didn't care what it fated.
CHINA MIéVILLE
Kraken
Our fate isn't in the hands of some non-existent Lady Luck. We don't need rabbit feet to bring good luck and keep bad luck away. God has promised that if we love and trust him, that he will lead us the way we should go.
ED STRAUSS
The 2:52 Ultimate Devo for Boys
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
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
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 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
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"
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"
Our fate is something which exists outside ourselves, and which once revealed expresses the meaning of our lives. Apart, however, from soothsayers who claim to have a means of foretelling exactly what will befall us, this kind of fate is only normally revealed after a life has ended. Only then can the meaning of that life be understood.
ANDREW GAMBLE
Politics and Fate
Fate is just the steps we take to follow destiny.
JUSTIN ROBERT HARNISH
King
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 always wins, for our own heart within us
Imperiously furthers its designs.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Wallenstein
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
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 is like a coconut--you never know when it's gonna fall. Can be good, can be bad. If it falls on your head, tough luck. If it falls at your feet, you've got something sweet to eat, something sweet to drink.
MARILENE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL
The Company of Heaven
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"
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