Notable Quotes
Browse quotes by subject | Browse quotes by author


QUOTES ON FATE

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

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

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.

WILLIAM JAMES, The Principles of Psychology

A man's character is his fate.

HERACLITUS

Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed
Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven.

EURIPIDES, Fragment

Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquer'd Fate.

MATTHEW ARNOLD, Resignation

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

GROUCHO MARX, Woman's Day Magazine, May 8, 2007

O God! that one might read the book of fate.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Henry IV, Part II

Fate's sentence written on the brow no hand can e'er efface.

BHARTRHARI, "The Praise of Destiny"

Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.

ELIZABETH BOWEN, The House in Paris

Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent ...
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

JOHN WEBSTER, The White Devil

The best of men cannot suspend their fate:
The good die early, and the bad die late.

DANIEL DEFOE, Character of the late Dr. S. Annesley

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

For man is man and master of his fate.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Idylls of the King

When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious.

FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune

There is no armour against fate.

JAMES SHIRLEY, The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses

We seal our fate with the choices we make.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, Seal Our Fate

I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day.

ABRAHAM COWLEY, Of Myself

The powerless worship Luck and Fate.

MASON COOLEY, City Aphorisms

Deep in the man sits fast his fate
To mould his fortunes, mean or great.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Fate

A bald man felt the sun's fierce rays
Scorch his defenseless head,
In haste to shun the noontide blaze
Beneath a palm he fled:
Prone as he lay, a heavy fruit
Crashed through his drowsy brain:
Whom fate has sworn to persecute
Finds every refuge vain.

BHARTRHARI, "The Praise of Destiny"

Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast,
He dieth not, unless the appointed time,
The limit of his life's span, coincide;
Nor does the man who by the hearth at home
Sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees.

AESCHYLUS, Fragment

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

Fate throws fortune, but not everyone catches.

POLISH PROVERB


RELATED LINKS