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- 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.
- Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed
- Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven.
- 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.
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 ...
Fate throws fortune, but not everyone catches.
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