quotations about fate
Men make their own history; but they make it under given conditions, and they become entangled thereby in a fate which is in part the result of other men having made their own history earlier.
REINHARD BENDIX
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Force
Fate is a misplaced retreat. Many people rationalize an unexplained event as fate and shrug their shoulders when it occurs. But that is not what fate is. The world operates as a series of circles that are invisible, for they extend to the upper air. Fate is where these circles cut to earth. Since we cannot see them, do not know their content, and have no sense of their width, it is impossible to predict when these cuts will slice into our reality. When this happens, we call it fate. Fate is not a chance event but one that is inevitable, we are simply blind to its nature and time.
JAMES LEVINE
The Blue Notebook
Fate or divine dispensation is merely a convention which has come to be regarded as truth by being repeatedly declared to be true. If this god or fate is truly the ordainer of everything in this world, of what meaning is any action (even like bathing, speaking or giving), and whom should one teach at all? No. In this world, except a corpse, everything is active and such activity yields its appropriate result.
VANKATESANANDA
The Concise Yogi Vasistha
The longest life is but a multiplication of days, nay of hours, nay of moments. Our Fate is set, and the first breath we draw is but the first step towards our last.
SENECA
Epistles
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
JOHN DRYDEN
Mac Flecknoe
Fate always aids the undoomed man, if his courage holds out.
EMILY G. HOOKER
Poet Lore
There is reason for Fate always being personified as a female, for its utter caprice is intelligible only on that theory.
JOEL BENTON
Travelers Record, Jan. 1893
Fate is not what we decide or make our goal. It is what we are revealed to be in the working out of fate. We act in the dark. Everything we do has a significance that escapes us and overturns all our certainties.
STELIOS RAMPHOS
Fate and Ambiguity in Oedipus the King
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
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Illustrated London News, Apr. 29, 1922
My fate is like a massive tree whose fruit is poison and whose leaves are sorrow.
ABOLQASEM FERDOWSI
Shahnameh
Necessity or chance
Approach not me; and what I will is fate.
MILTON
Paradise Lost
Human beings have always been obsessed with fate. It hangs over them like a dark shadow. Fate implies finitude; the knowledge that life, whether of the individual or of the species, has natural limits. The fate of each person is their death, and the fate of the species is the extinction of life on the planet whether because of the finite span of existence of the sun, or some other natural cause. Fate in this sense has always been an important component of human culture, deriving its power as an idea from the fact that there are features of the human condition which are inevitable and unalterable. Life stands in opposition to it in a permanent creative tension.
ANDREW GAMBLE
Politics and Fate
See thou, whatsoever be thy name -- whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me!
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
Fate is not itself our metaphysical fate, but an opening choice; we can ... turn the account into freedom.
STANLEY CAVELL
Contesting Tears
Fate and the dooming gods are deaf to tears.
JOHN DRYDEN
Aeneis
But if fate, as a limit-determination, still seems more powerful than free will, there are two things we should not forget: first that fate is only an abstract concept, a force without matter; that for the individual there is only an individual fate, that fate is nothing else but a chain of events; that man, as soon as he acts, creates his own events, determines his own fate; that, in general, events, insofar as they affect him, are, consciously or unconsciously, brought about by himself and must suit him. The activity of man, however, does not first begin with birth. But already with the embryo and perhaps--who can be certain here--already with his parents and forefathers. All of you who believe in the immortality of the soul, unless you are willing to allow the development of the mortal out of something immortal or are willing to grant that the soul flies about in thin air until it is at last lodged in a body, must also believe in the pre-existence of the soul. The Hindu says: Fate is nothing but the acts we have committed in a prior state of our being.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
"Freedom of Will and Fate"
Whatever be thy fate today,
Remember, this will pass away!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE
"The Old Man's Motto"
In this world whatever is gained is gained only by self-effort; where failure is encountered, it is seen that there has been slackness in effort. This is obvious, but what is called fate is fictitious, and is not seen. Self-effort, Rama, is that mental, verbal and physical action which is in accordance with the instructions of a holy person well-versed in the scriptures. It is only by such effort that Indra became king of heaven, that Brahma became the creator, and the other deities earned their place. Self-effort is of two categories: that of past births and that of this birth. The latter effectively counteracts the former. Fate is none other than self-effort of a past incarnation. There is constant conflict between these two in this incarnation; and that which is more powerful triumphs.
VANKATESANANDA
The Concise Yogi Vasistha
Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
She felled--he did not fall--
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes--
He neutralized them all.
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
Acknowledged him a man.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Fate slew Him