Famous Quotes & Sayings

Epicurus

A strict belief in fate is the worst of slavery, imposing upon our necks an everlasting lord and tyrant, whom we are to stand in awe of night and day.

Epictetus

To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, human beings have a duty of care to all fellow humans. The person who followed these precepts would achieve happiness.

Emily Giffin

Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall—the blind belief in fate, the whole "things happening for a reason" drill.

Emily Giffin

I think of how life takes unexpected twists and turns, sometimes through sheer happenstance, sometimes through calculated decisions. In the end, it can all be called fate, but to me, it is more a matter of faith.

Emily Dickinson

Superiority to Fate Is difficult to gain 'Tis not conferred of Any But possible to earn.

Hermann Hesse

If what matters in a person's existence is to accept the inevitable consciously, to taste the good and bad to the full and to make for oneself a more individual, unaccidental and inward destiny alongside one's external fate, then my life has been neither empty nor worthless.

Hermann Hesse

My resolve to die was not the whim of an hour. It was the ripe, sound fruit that had slowly grown to full size, lightly rocked by the winds of fate whose next breath would bring it to the ground.

Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate this very hour, and he stopped suffering.

Hermann Hesse

One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." That was clear to me now.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

...for it is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence. Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers Runnng through caverns of darkness...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Your education begins where what is called your education is over. Your fate is but the common lot of all.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Trouble is the next best thing to enjoyment; there is no fate in the world so horrible as to have no share in either its joys or sorrows.

Henri Nouwen

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly.

Heinrich Himmler

These clashes are the only evolu-tionary possibility which will enable us one day, now that Fate has given us the Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, to create the Germanic Reich.

Heinrich Himmler

All of us, who are members of the Germanic peoples, can be happy and thankful that once in thousands of years fate has given us, from among the Germanic peoples, such a genius, a leader, our Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, and you should be happy to be allowed to work with us.

Henry Fielding

The blackest ink of fate are sure my lot, And when fate writ my name it made a blot.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thou must (in commanding and winning, or serving and losing, suffering or triumphing) be either anvil or hammer.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My days are as happy as those reserved by God for his elect; and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy— the purest joy of life.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.

Jonathan Swift

This Day, whate'er the Fates decree; Shall still be kept with Joy by me: This Day then, let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old

Napoleon Hill

We are the masters of our fate, the captains of our souls, because we have the power to control our thoughts.

Napoleon Bonaparte

There is no such thing as an accident, only a failure to recognise the hand of fate

Napoleon Bonaparte

A battle sometimes decides everything; and sometimes the most trifling thing decides the fate of a battle.

Napoleon Bonaparte

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.

Orison Swett Marden

They may well fear fate who have any infirmity of habit or aim: but they who rest on what is have a destiny beyond destiny, and can make mouths of fortune.

Olympia Dukakis

So I constantly play women who are damaged and out of touch, who are seeking without knowing, or knowing without the skills to transform their lives. But then, that's really the fate of many women today.

Olympia Brown

Fortuitous circumstances constitute the molds that shape the majority of human lives, and the hasty impress of an accident is too often regarded as the relentless decree of all ordaining fate.

Omar Khayyam

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate; And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

Oliver Sacks

There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.