fate Quotes

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.”

“Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.”

“All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”

“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.”

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars But in ourselves.”

“My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.”

“Come now, “he said. Have you anything to fear? It seems to me, on the contrary, that everything is working out as you would wish.” “That is precisely what terrifies me,” said Dantès. “I cannot think that man is meant to find happiness so easily! Happiness is like one of those palaces on an enchanted island, its gates guarded by dragons. One must fight to gain it; and, in truth, I do not know what I have done to deserve the good fortune of becoming Mercédès’ husband.”

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.

“Men at some time are masters of their fates.”

“Good luck to you, even so. Farewell! But if you only knew, down deep, what pains are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore.”

“But the great leveler, Death: not even the gods can defend a man, not even one they love, that day when fate takes hold and lays him out at last.”

“Captain, this is madness! High time you thought of your own home at last, if it really is your fate to make it back alive and reach your well-built house and native land.”

“Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.”

And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you - it’s born with us the day that we are born.

“What God wills, will happen; thou canst not hurry it, thou canst not alter it; therefore wait, and be patient”

America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many.

We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive.

“I know that somehow, every step I took since the moment I could walk was a step towards finding you.”

“Or maybe it was her father’s pragmatic dictum, “You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you,” that disposed her to see the hardships of her life as a fate shared by everyone, her good fortunes as an unearned blessing.”

“And if death does take me, send the hammered mail of my armor to Higlac, return the inheritance I had from Hrethel, and he from Wayland. Fate will unwind as it must!”

“We may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed.”

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

“You must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise.”

“She was glad she had kept working and thankful that the camp had voted not to strike, but she knew that under different circumstances, it could have been her on that bus. [...] Some of these people did not deserve their fate today. How was it that the United States could send people to Mexico who had never even lived there?”

“’You see,’ said Candide to Martin, ‘that crime is sometimes punished. This rogue of a Dutch skipper has met with the fate he deserved.’ ‘Yes,’ said Martin; ‘but why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction? God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest.’”

“Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. And, naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate.”

“All that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.”

“’It is demonstrable,’ said he, ‘that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end.’”

“’There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.’ ‘All that is very well,’ answered Candide, ‘but let us cultivate our garden.’”

“For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town. If a damp spring arrived, if cows in the pasture gave milk that was runny with blood, if a colt died of colic or a baby was born with a red birthmark stamped onto his cheek, everyone believed that fate must have been twisted, at least a little, by those women over on Magnolia Street.”

“The fate of this man or that man was less than a drop, although it was a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.”

“But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate.”

“Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this.”

“We can’t choose our fate, but we can choose others. Be careful in knowing that.”

“Since her death, Owen had hinted that the strongest force compelling him to attend Gravesend Academy—namely, my mother’s insistence—was gone. Those rooms allowed us to imagine what we might become—if not exactly boarders (because I would continue to live with Dan, and with Grandmother, and Owen would live at home), we would still harbor such secrets, such barely restrained messiness, such lusts, even, as these poor residents of Waterhouse Hall. It was our lives in the near future that we were searching for when we searched in those rooms, and therefore it was shrewd of Owen that he made us take our time.”

“Great criminals bear about them a kind of predestination which makes them surmount all obstacles, which makes them escape all dangers, till the moment which a wearied Providence has marked as the rock for their impious fortunes.”

“‘No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism.’ ‘I think this is happening because it was supposed to happen.’ Elizabeth speaks very softly. ‘I’d prefer not to think that I’m following a script,’ Miranda says.”

“Eat bread, oh Enkidu! It is the conformity of life, of the conditions and the fate of the land.”

″‘I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you’re in control.‘”

“I do not want you to waste your life in dreams, like your father.”

″‘Can’t again,’ said Caspian. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘If it please your Majesty, we mean shall not,’ said Reepicheep with a very low bow. ‘You are the King of Narnia. You break faith with all your subjects, and especially with Trumpkin, if you do not return. You shall not please yourself with adventures as if you were a private person. And if your Majesty will not hear reason, it will be the truest loyalty of every man on board to follow me in disarming and binding you till you come to your senses.‘”

“I saw the old woman who had delivered me from my mother’s womb. I knew she held the secret of my destiny.”

“This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world.”

“Nothing is written in the stars ... No one controls your destiny.”

“Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.”

″‘T is fate diverts our course, and fate we must obey.”

“They hope the fated land, but fear the fatal way.”

“Fierce Juno’s hate, Added to hostile force, shall urge thy fate.”

“And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state, Know, I have search’d the mystic rolls of Fate.”

“Not Helen’s face, nor Paris, was in fault; But by the gods was this destruction brought.”

“Daughter, dismiss thy fears; to thy desire The fates of thine are fix’d, and stand entire.”

“It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did.”

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions.”

“But surely the curse was on the land of Oz, not on her.”

“By the looks, marred though they be by fate, I judge thee noble.”

“And if When born to misery, as born I was, I met my sire, not knowing whom I met or what I did, and slew him, how canst thou With justice blame the all-unconscious hand?”

“We don’t become geisha so our lives will be satisfying. We become geisha because we have no other choice.”

“If any one attributes their existence to fate, because he calls the will or the power of God itself by the name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his language.”

“Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand.‘”

“Get up there, Bill,”

″‘There’s Don and Eva,’ Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. ‘Make them take their chance!’

″ Balls to your sorry ... Ka works and the world moves on. ”

“Our stories are obviously specific to our two lives, but I hope they will illuminate the crucial inflection points in every life, the sudden moments of decision where our paths diverge and our fates are sealed.”

“Perhaps we were meant to meet.”

“Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread. The hunters are hunted, white water runs red. The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest. The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest. An Overland warrior, a son of the sun, May bring us back light, he may bring us back none. But gather your neighbors and follow his call Or rats will most surely devour us all. Two over, two under, of royal descent, Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent. One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead. And eight will be left when we count up the dead. The last who will die must decide where he stands. The fate of the eight is contained in his hands. So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps, As life may be death and death life again reaps.”

“It was wicked to let a young girl blindly decide her fate in that way, without any effort to save her.”

“I didn’t fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we’d choose anyway. And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not.”

“It occurs to me that there’s no real difference between us, the living and the dead; it’s just a matter of tense: past-dead and future-dead.”

“He thought about that visionary lady. To die, he thought, never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one’s embrace. To sink into that hideous coma, to sink then into death and, perhaps, return to sterile, awful wanderings. All without knowing what it was to love and be loved. That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire.”

″‘That we wound up in Pandemonium the same night that Jace and the others just happened to be there, pursuing a demon? The night before Valentine came for my mother?’ Simon shook his head. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ he said.”

“It’s not for nothing that you stand at the end of my life ... just as ... at its beginning.”

“I must know more than I know already. For I know that house where I will be cold and not belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains, and I have slept there many times before, long ago. How long ago? In that bed I will dream the end of my dream. But my dream had nothing to do with England and I must not think like this, I must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and snow.”

“YOUR FATE IS NOT YET SEALED. EVEN IN THE DARKEST NIGHT, A STAR WILL SHINE, A BELL WILL CHIME, A PATH WILL BE REVEALED.”

“I was in the hands of fate and it was useless to try to escape.”

“The inner, the essential line of our fate consists of such invisible experiences. Such fissures and rents consists of such invisible experiences. Such fissures and rents grow together again, heal and are forgotten, but in the most secret recesses they continue to live and bleed.”

“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”

“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”

“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”

“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”

“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”

“He is cured by faith who is sick of fate.”

“To skip any one of the billion acts in Columbus’s chain would have wholly changed his life. I have examined his billion of possible careers, and in only one of them occurs the discovery of America.”

“It’s best not to know your fate beforehand; you’ll live happier if you don’t.”

“Oh, cursed fate! A fraction of a moment later, young Drosselmeier was as ugly as Princess Pirlipat had been. His shrunken body could hardly support the monstrously swollen head with the big protuberant eyes and the wide, hideously yawning mouth. ”

“It’s not going to be easy for the Fates, making sure that everyone who’s set to die does die, but they’ll triumph in the end.”

“A man in the mud was a condemned man, Da said, and arguing with his fate would only break your heart for you.”

“It describes the gruesome fates of children who fidget at table, suck their thumbs or refuse to eat their soup.”

“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.”

“My mother had reminded me then there were souls whose fates were so terrible in comparison to ours, that we should consider ourselves among the fortunate of the earth. I knew she was thinking of the slaves who were sold daily so close to where we lived.”

“Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.”

″...sometimes there comes a time in a man’s life when fate has beaten him so that he must bow his head and decide that he must eat his pride so that his family may eat bread.”

“I do not know why it is the fate of the world always to want something different from what life gives them.”

“And even took him to the Zoo- But there it was the dreadful Fate Befell him, which I now relate. You know- at least you ought to know, For I have often told you so- That Children are never allowed To leave their Nurses in a Crowd”

“Understand, by saying God, I am merely using God as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly.”

“If fate is a bunch of strings, then I’ll carry scissors. My choices are my own. I’ll make them as I please.”

“To this day, cranes carry the strands of our fate. They say that each time two people’s paths cross, so do their strands. When they become important to one another or make a promise to one another, a knot is tied, connecting them.”

So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in thy hands.

“It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may!”

What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days.

“God winds you up, and you go till He stops you.”

“How inscrutable are the ways of Providence—for what great and mysterious purpose has it pleased Heaven to abase the man once so elevated, and raise up him who was so abased?”

“Why, you must see, your excellency,” cried the steward, “that this is not natural; that, having a house to purchase, you purchase it exactly at Auteuil, and that, purchasing it at Auteuil, this house should be No. 28, Rue de la Fontaine. Oh, why did I not tell you all? I am sure you would not have forced me to come. I hoped your house would have been some other one than this; as if there was not another house at Auteuil than that of the assassination!”

This is not chance, for chance, in this case, is too much like Providence.

“You cannot control circumstances, my dear sir; ‘man proposes, and God disposes.‘”

“I do not intend to render another man responsible for the rigorous fate reserved for me.”

“Albert, from whatever source the blow may have proceeded—may be from an enemy, but that enemy is only the agent of Providence.”

“I am stricken by fate.”

“Everything,” he said, “proves me to be under the protection of some powerful person,—this sudden fortune, the facility with which I have overcome all obstacles, an unexpected family and an illustrious name awarded to me, gold showered down upon me, and the most splendid alliances about to be entered into. An unhappy lapse of fortune and the absence of my protector have cast me down, certainly, but not forever. The hand which has retreated for a while will be again stretched forth to save me at the very moment when I shall think myself sinking into the abyss.”

“If the Supreme Being has directed the fatal blow,” said Emmanuel, “it must be that he in his great goodness has perceived nothing in the past lives of these people to merit mitigation of their awful punishment.”

“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.‘”

Ah, I thought, there will be no saving him: he’s doomed, and flies to his fate!

“Luck changes,” says Compeyson; “perhaps yours is going to change.”

“As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.”

“But we shall meet again. If it’s God’s will, we may see a great deal of one another.”

“Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early, much-loved friend; he who would spend each vital drop of blood for your sakes, who has no thought nor sense of joy except as it is mirrored also in your dear countenances, who would fill the air with blessings and spend his life in serving you—he bids you weep, to shed countless tears; happy beyond his hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the destruction pause before the peace of the grave have succeeded to your sad torments!”