Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate Is privileg'd beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
I have searched for my forehead to find a secret writing about my fate and I found no trace of destiny, but my very own decisions!
There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity. . . when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.
Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.
Fate is nonawareness.
. . . if you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos, to monitor where it is going and keep a record of where it has been, you wouldn't choose human beings for the job. But here's an extrememly salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or Providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.
Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you're in over your head.
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 today.
Believing in fate produces fate. Believing in freedom will create infinite possibilities.
No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep.
Ill Fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.
We seal our fate with the choices we take, but don't give a second thought to the chances we take.
Toil is the lot of all, and bitter woe The fate of many.
Looking backward always presents an overdetermined depiction of fate; by this perspective we leave out of focus the possibilities of action which existed at the time.
Shun to seek what is hid in the womb of the morrow, and set down as gain in life's ledger whatever time fate shall have granted thee.
It's the coward who says, 'This is fate'. . . It's the strong who stands up & says 'I will make my fate'
In a way, Che Guevara's fate was far worse than Simon Bolivar's. Guevara's collapse was complete: his intentions were forgotten, but his style was taken up by boutique owners (one of the fanciest clothes stores in London is called Che Guevara). There is no faster way of destroying a man or mocking his ideas than making him fashionable. That Che succeeded in influencing dress-designers was part of his tragedy.
France cannot be destroyed. She is an old country who, despite her misfortunes, has, and always will have, thanks to her past, a tremendous prestige in the world, whatever the fate inflicted upon her.
Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. . . . Fate is certain; death is certain; but the courage and nobility of men and women matter more than these.